Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

GERMAN-MADE CHRISTMAS CARDS.

Commander Locker-Lampson: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that large numbers of German-made Christmas cards are likely to be sold shortly in competition with English makes; and what steps he will take to stop this?

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Oliver Stanley): I have been informed that Christmas cards made in Germany were imported before the outbreak of the war and may shortly be on sale. I have no power to prohibit their sale, and any such prohibition would in no way prejudice the enemy but would inflict loss and injustice on the importers in this country.

Commander Locker-Lampson: May I ask whether in future, and indeed even now, the country of origin could not be marked on them?

Mr. Stanley: I have no power to require that.

GREAT BRITAIN AND FRANCE.

Mr. de Rothschild: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the views jointly expressed by the presidents of the British and French Chambers of Commerce with regard to the restrictions on Franco-British trade; and what steps he proposes to take towards securing an expansion of such trade and collaboration between the two countries in the economic field such as exists with regard to political and military activities?

Mr. Price: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been drawn to the joint statement

issued by the presidents of the British Chamber of Commerce in Paris and the French Chamber of Commerce in London, to the effect that economic relations between the United Kingdom and the French Republic are being seriously compromised by certain regulations restricting commerce between the two countries; and whether he will inquire into this matter with a view to promoting the closest possible economic relations in the future?

Mr. Stanley: The answer to the first part of each question is in the affirmative. As regards the second part, the question of trade relations between France and this country was one of the subjects discussed with M. Reynaud on the occasion of his visit to London, and it is receiving further consideration with a view to solving any difficulties in a spirit of mutual comprehension.

Sir Percy Harris: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether the arrangements for financial and economic co-operation between France and Great Britain include provisions for jointly stimulating the export trades of the two countries?

Mr. Stanley: Advantage will continue to be taken of any opportunities that may arise for useful collaboration between the two countries in the direction suggested by the hon. Member.

Sir P. Harris: Would not the best beginning be to remove some of the restrictions on trade between the two countries?

Mr. Stanley: I think I answered that question before the hon. Baronet came into the Chamber.

Colonel Wedgwood: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is contemplating freedom of trade between this country and France as a means of increasing exports?

Mr. Stanley: Again, I think the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was not in the House when, in answer to a question, I said that we have had discussions on this subject with M. Reynaud, and that we hope to solve the problem to our mutual satisfaction.

GAS (PRICE INCREASE).

Mr. W. H. Green: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he was


consulted prior to the decision of the gas companies operating in London to increase considerably the cost per therm of gas to domestic consumers; whether he is satisfied that these increases are justified; and, in view of the serious burden this increase will cause to many of the poorer sections of the community, does he propose to take any further action?

Mr. Stanley: Although no sanction by my Department is required preliminary to increasing gas prices in London, the Board of Trade were informed of the intention to increase prices shortly before the published announcement was made. I have no reason to believe that the increases are not justified.

Mr. Green: Is the Minister aware that the gas companies have not given the proper legal notice to the consumers before putting the increase into operation, and in his inquiries, has he satisfied himself that the increased prices obtained for the by-products of gas making have been taken into account?

Mr. Stanley: The first part of the Supplementary Question raises another point, and if the hon. Member will put a question on that on the Paper, I will look into it. As to the second part of the Supplementary Question, the House will appreciate that the greatest factor in the increase in prices is the fall in consumption, and there are well-recognised tables which show the increase in costs as the consumption decreases.

Mr. Green: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the second part of the Supplementary Question, as to whether the increased prices obtained for the byproduct's have been taken into account in calculating the increase?

Mr. Stanley: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Shinwell: As this is a matter of increasing the cost of living spread over the community, has the right hon. Gentleman satisfied himself in his investigation that the increased charges are justified, and if it is a question of the interests of the shareholders and the interests of the community, ought not the interests of the community to come first?

Mr. Stanley: The position of the gas companies is regulated by Act of Parlia-

ment. Although I have no statutory obligation to inquire into this, I am quite satisfied that the increase is not only justified, but that it would have been possible to justify an even greater increase.

SWITZERLAND.

Mr. Hannah: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that storekeepers in Switzerland are finding it impossible to secure the British goods to which they have become accustomed, and that German traders are pushing in; and will he take steps to remedy this unsatisfactory state of affairs?

Mr. Stanley: Disturbance to our export trade is, I fear, inevitable in the changeover from peace to war conditions. Discussions on this and other commercial matters are now proceeding with a trade delegation which the Swiss Government recently sent to this country.

Mr. Hannah: Are not the Government getting rather worried about our export
trade?

Mr. Stanley: That is one of the reasons I am discussing the position with the trade delegation.

ELECTRIC TORCHES AND BATTERIES (PRICES).

Mr. Creech Jones: asked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he is taking under the Prices of Goods Act to prevent profiteering in the sale of batteries for hand-torches?

Mr. Stanley: The question of applying the Prices of Goods Act to electric torches and refill batteries is under consideration.

CONTRACT PRICES.

Miss Ward: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the issue of the Coal Prices (Inland Supply) Order, 1939, which gives power to coal-owners to raise the price of coal irrespective of contract prices, he intends to take similar action with regard to other industries?

Mr. Stanley: No, Sir. There were special considerations affecting the price of coal.

Miss Ward: May I have an assurance that in future the Government will not


embark on a policy which involves prejudicing the sanctity of contracts without giving the House a statement on it?

Mr. Stanley: The Order was made publicly.

RUMANIAN OIL.

Mr. Price: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that Germany is undertaking a trade drive in the Balkans, and, especially, is interested in getting monopoly control of Rumanian oil; and whether any steps have been taken by His Majesty's Government to counteract this move?

Mr. Stanley: The answer to both parts of the question is in the affirmative, but it is clearly not in the national interest to make public statements about these matters.

Mr. Price: Have we purchased any Rumanian oil?

Mr. Stanley: I cannot add anything to what I have said.

Mr. Mander: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether this is a matter that falls wholly within the sphere of his Department, and whether he is able to give decisions on it?

Mr. Stanley: It does not come wholly within the sphere of my Department, but there is very close co-operation between the Departments concerned.

APPLES AND PEARS (IMPORT).

Mr. Isaacs: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, before any arrangements are made in connection with the Import of Goods Prohibition Orders Nos. 6, 7 and 8 for the limitation of shipments of apples from Canada to the United Kingdom, he will discuss the most appropriate measures with the National Federation of Fruit and Potato Trades, Limited, which is vitally interested?

Mr. Stanley: An open general licence has been issued authorising the importation of apples from Empire countries, including Canada, without the need of obtaining specific licences from the Board of Trade. As has been announced, it has been arranged with the Canadian

Government that they will impose a limitation on exports. I understand it is probable that the arrangements will allow of the shipment of most, if not all, of the apples contracted for or paid for before 15th November for the current season.

Mr. Isaacs: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an answer to the suggestion that he should discuss appropriate measures with the trading interests concerned?

Mr. Stanley: There is no limitation on imports from Canada imposed by order in this country, but the Canadians have agreed themselves to regulate the exports from Canada.

Mr. Higgs: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that in the apple and pear industry it is the essential practice for importers to make arrangements and commitments well in advance; and whether he can give an undertaking that no restriction will be put into force without previous consultation with the trade and or without due consideration being given to these factors?

Mr. Stanley: Yes, Sir. As regards the second part of the question, my hon. Friend will understand that consultation in advance of restrictions made necessary by urgent national needs may not always be possible; but I can assure him that consideration was given to the special circumstances of the fruit trade before the order imposing restrictions on apples and pears was issued, and that as long notice as was considered possible in the circumstances was .given.

Mr. Higgs: Does my right hon. Friend intend to institute consultations with the trade in future?

Mr. Stanley: It is not always possible, when considering the question of imposing restrictions, just as when it is a question of imposing taxation, to take the trade concerned fully into one's confidence, because to do so would be to run the risk of a very considerable amount of forestalling. I am prepared to have close contact with the trade, but I cannot give any pledge which would make it necessary for me to consult it.

Mr. George Griffiths: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that with Christ-


mas coming, these apples will be required without restriction?

RAW MATERIALS (IMPORT).

Sir Granville Gibson: asked the President of the Board of Trade (i) whether he is aware that the Import Licensing Department is refusing to grant permits to import raw materials required to complete contracts in the United Kingdom entered into before the war started; that these raw materials have been purchased in the British Dominions; that this refusal will throw men out of employment; and whether he will give instructions that all United Kingdom contractors and manufacturers who purchased materials and supplies before the war started from any part of the Empire shall be granted permits to import;
(2) whether he is aware that the Import Licensing Department is refusing to grant permits to import the raw materials required by manufacturers in the United Kingdom to manufacture goods for export to Empire and foreign countries, and that such raw materials cannot be obtained in this country; and will he give instructions that all raw materials required to carry on the export trade of the country shall be granted permits to enable them to be imported?

Mr. Stanley: The importation of most raw materials is free from restrictions. Certain Import Prohibition Orders, relating to raw materials, have been made at the request of the Ministry of Supply; but the object of these Orders is not to reduce the quantity of imports but rather to enable the competent controller to arrange purchases of these materials in the most advantageous manner and to put such materials as are available to the best use.

Sir G. Gibson: ; Is it the policy of the Government to give every possible opportunity for the importation of raw materials when, they are necessary for completing contracts and, in many cases, carrying out export orders?

Mr. Stanley: Yes, Sir, I have been trying to impress upon all applicants for import licences that if they require the material for the purposes of export they should state so, and that I will then do all I can to help them.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF SHIPPING.

CAIRD SHIPYARD, GREENOCK.

Mr. Robert Gibson: asked the Minister of Shipping whether, in view of the shortage of shipping, he has now considered the requisitioning by the Govern ment of the Caird shipyard, Greenock; and whether he has any statement to make on the subject?

The Minister of Shipping (Sir John Gilmour): This shipyard is completely dismantled and its re-opening would involve considerable expenditure before it could be made productive. Further, I am advised that owing to the demands already made on shipyard labour in the Clyde, there would not be skilled labour available to man the yard. A portion of the property in this yard which had not been developed has been let to the Admiralty.

Mr. Gibson: Is the right hon. Gentleman keeping in mind that this site has been examined by other Government Departments, which have pointed out that it is ideally situated for ship building?

CANADA.

Miss Wilkinson: asked the Minister of Shipping whether he has yet come to a decision as to the order of 30 ships at a total cost of over £7,000,000 from Canadian shipyards; and can he state the conditions under which the vessels will be operated when they are built?

Sir J. Gilmour: While the whole question is receiving urgent attention, no orders have yet been placed and there is no foundation for the figures given in the question.

Oral Answers to Questions — ECONOMIC WARFARE.

MINISTRY'S POWERS.

Mr. Mander: asked the Minister of Economic Warfare what financial powers and executive authority he possesses to take immediate action, in appropriate cases, to prevent supplies reaching or the services of neutral shipping being made available to Germany?

The Minister of Economic Warfare (Mr. Cross): I have no executive authority to take immediate action in the cases which the hon. Member seems to have in mind. The measures for the organisation of which the Ministry of Economic Warfare


is responsible extend over the fields covered by many other Departments; but there are arrangements by which the competent authorities of other Departments act on the advice of the Ministry, or of bodies connected with it, in suitable cases. Expenditure necessitated by these measures is met by the executive Departments concerned from funds made available by the Vote of Credit in so far as it is not covered by Departmental Votes.

Mr. Mander: Can the Minister say whether this particular matter, shipping, is one for his Department or for the Ministry of Shipping?

Mr. Cross: In the ordinary course of events, all chartering is done by the Ministry of Shipping, but, of course, it could occur in exceptional circumstances that I might wish to advise the Ministry of Shipping that certain chartering was desirable, and in that case, it would be open to me to take that action.

Mr. Mander: Is the Minister aware that the other night, when this question was put to the Minister of Shipping, he said it was a matter for the Minister of Economic Warfare, and is it not possible to come to some definite understanding as to which Minister is responsible?

Mr. Garro Jones: Is the Minister aware that this is only one of the matters on which there is great confusion between his Department and other Departments as to on whom the responsibility for taking the initiative lies, and does he recognise that in this particular case the initiative rests upon him?

Mr. Cross: I cannot agree that there is any confusion whatever. The circumstances in which the initiative rests with my Department are quite exceptional, and in the ordinary way, the initiative rests with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Shipping.

FOOD SUPPLIES, BALTIC STATES.

Miss Ward: asked the Minister of Economic Warfare whether, in order to prevent the diversion to Germany of normal butter and bacon supplies from the Baltic States to this country, because of the increased cost of transporting to this country, he will consider purchasing such supplies on Government account?

Mr. Cross: His Majesty's Government are giving close attention to the question

of possible purchases of food supplies from the Baltic States. My hon. Friend will recall that at the present time all essential food supplies are purchased by His Majesty's Government.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY.

REMITTANCES BY POST.

Mr. Woodburn: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is prepared to institute some efficient and secure method for families desiring to send re mittances to their relatives serving in the Forces, in view of the general instruction not to send money through the post, the decision to regard postal orders as legal tender, and the reluctance of people to include remittances in soldiers' parcels of which the contents must be detailed on the outside covering?

The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Hore-Belisha): Remittances not exceeding £22s. on any one day may be sent to a member of the British Expeditionary Force by means of postal orders. So long as these are legal tender, they must be sent by registered post if senders desire to claim compensation in the event of loss. Postal orders should not be enclosed in parcels.

Mr. R. Gibson: Could not some arrangement be made for transmission by telegram?

DEPENDANTS' ALLOWANCES.

Mr. John Morgan: asked the Secretary of State for War whether, because of widespread uncertainty, he will restate the conditions which qualify a woman to receive an allowance as if she were the wife of a soldier though unmarried to him; and what steps he takes to prevent abuse of this regulation before or after the allowance is made?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: A special dependants' allowance, at the same rates and under the same other conditions as would be applicable if the parties were married and eligible for family allowance, is issuable to a woman who has lived with a soldier as his wife and who was wholly or substantially maintained by him on a permanent domestic basis for a continuous period of not less than six months immediately before the date of his joining the colours, and for any children of the soldier who are in her care. Awards


under this provision are made only after special local investigation on behalf of the War Office, to verify that the woman concerned fulfils the conditions indicated, and, as a condition of the allowance, the soldier has to contribute from his pay to the same extent as if he were married to the woman. An allowance is liable to be withdrawn at any time if facts subsequently come to the knowledge of the Department which show that its continuance is not warranted.

Mr. Morgan: Does that arrangement take into account the position of a woman who has been deserted by her husband, against whom a separation order has been made but who makes an allotment to the woman with whom he is living? What is the position of the woman and children left under the separation order?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: I think that all those circumstances are covered. If a woman has been deserted by her husband and is living with the soldier—[Interruption.] If two women claimed an allowance for the same soldier it could not be sustained because the soldier has to make an allotment from his pay.

Mr. Morgan: What is the position of the soldier who wishes to make an allotment to the woman with whom he is living and has deserted his wife and family for whom a separation order and allowance have been made? What pressure is brought upon the man to do his duty to his wife and children?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: In each case the War Office satisfies itself that the claim is a good one having regard to the circumstances which the hon. Gentleman has mentioned.

Captain W. T. Shaw: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider the advisability of instituting a system of children's allowances for officers?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: In peace time, no special allowance is given to married officers under 30. But, in order to assist an officer in war time in the maintenance of his family, provision has been made for the issue of a family lodging allowance which includes supplements for children up to two. In the case of an officer over

30, the peace-time rules provide for family lodging allowance at higher rates varying according to rank, but not according to the size of the family. Married officers over 30 during the war, whether serving on regular or other commissions, have been given the benefit of the peace-time scales.

Captain Shaw: Will my right hon. Friend consider that there is in the Army a large number of junior officers who have four or five young children, and who find it impossible to maintain their families on their present pay; and will he give the same sympathetic consideration to their case as he gave last week to the case of the soldiers?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: If my hon. and gallant Friend looks at the rate of allowance, he will see that those facts have been taken into account.

Mr. Ede: When the right hon. Gentleman says "up to two," does that refer to number or age?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: To number.

Mr. Poole: Will the Minister consider making an allowance for families of more than two children, or does he desire that officers should limit their families to two?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: The hon. Gentleman will see that this is a new concession, and it has been very much welcomed.

Mr. Woodburn: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will grant a compassionate allowance of 5s. per week to widows whose sons are serving with the Forces?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: Under the present scheme of dependants' allowances, a widowed mother is already eligible for an allowance of 12s., 17s. or 20s. 6d. a week, including the soldier's allotment, according to circumstances, if by reason of the inability of her son to continue to contribute to her support, as before, hardship is caused, and family allowance for a wife or family is not already in issue. .In special circumstances, where the ordinary regulations do not meet such a case, application can be made for a grant of special assistance which would be dealt with on the advice of the Military Service (Special Allowances) Advisory Committee.

Mr. Woodburn: Are we to understand that the woman will get the allowance even if she cannot prove past dependency?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: She can go to this tribunal. She cannot get a dependant's allowance unless she was dependent.

Mr. Woodburn: That is the point. The question is will the Minister consider granting a compassionate allowance even where dependency cannot be proved and where it is anticipated rather than past?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: That is why a special tribunal has been established. It deals with allowances outside the ordinary allowances.

Mr. T. Williams: Is it not the case that every widow who has a son who is a recruit has to apply for any allowance at all?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: Yes, everybody has to apply.

Mr. George Hall: In view of the discontent prevailing in connection with the working of the scheme, will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider the whole scheme of partial dependency allowances?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: I shall always be ready, as I have shown the House, to consider any scheme, but I have not yet any facts brought to my notice to show that that description of the scheme is justified.

LIEUTENANTS (PAY).

Mr. J. Morgan: asked the Secretary of State for War whether lieutenants called up for duty from reserve commence their duties at the same rate of daily pay as those of similar rank who have been commissioned for some time; and what the daily rate of pay is?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: The rates of pay for a lieutenant in a combatant arm of the Service are 13s. a day on appointment to that rank and 14s. 6d. a day after six years' full pay reckonable service. A lieutenant called up from the reserve would receive one or the other of these rates according as he had or had not six years' full pay reckonable service to his credit.

REGULATIONS.

Mr. Dobbie: asked the Secretary of State for War whether it is his intention either to withdraw Army Form D. 406 or

to make it inoperative to men in receipt of a pension governed by such regulation during the period of the war?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: Army Form D. 406 related to civil employment, and was cancelled many years ago. I do not know what Regulation the hon. Member has in mind.

Mr. Dobbie: If I submit the Regulation to the Minister will he confer with me on the matter?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: Yes, Sir; I shall look forward with deep pleasure to doing so.

COMMISSIONS.

Mr. Dobbie: asked the Secretary of State for War whether there is any age limit in regard to the application of rankers for the necessary leave to make application to qualify for a commission in His Majesty's Forces?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: Soldiers between 18 years, 8 months and 40 years of age are eligible for selection either for immediate emergency commissions or for training at an officer cadet training unit.

CIVILIAN CLOTHES (RETURN).

Mr. Dobbie: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will make arrangements with the Postmaster-General for parcels containing the civilian suits of men who have been reservists and called to the Colours for service during the war, to be returned to their homes free of cost, as, in many instances, it constitutes a great hardship for wives or parents to make such payments?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: Yes, Sir, I have arranged that a reservist who has not already done so may send home, when necessary, a parcel containing his civil clothes at the public expense.

MOTOR ACCIDENT.

Mr. Ede: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that a motor car belonging to Mr. R. G. J. Crump was severely damaged at 8.55 a.m., on 13th September, 1939, and Mr. Crump himself injured by a lorry forming part of a convoy of the 901st Company, Royal Army Service Corps; that the lorry driver and the officer commanding the company have both admitted that the lorry driver was to blame; that a motor vehicle is essential to Mr. Crump's livelihood; and when will


compensation be paid him for the damage to his motor car and for his personal injuries?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: Authority has been given for payment of the cost of repairs to the car, and the War Office is in communication with Mr. Crump regarding his other claims.

Mr. Ede: When will Mr. Crump get written confirmation of the telegram which the right hon. Gentleman's Department sent him last night?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: I do not know, but it shows how quickly the War Office act.

Mr. Ede: After a question gets on the Paper.

BILLETING, CHELSEA.

Mr. Kennedy: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that several sections of the Royal Army Service Corps have been billeted in large empty houses in Cadogan Gardens, Chelsea, for 11 weeks; and whether he is satisfied with the sleeping accommodation provided for the men?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: As I have already informed the right hon. Member, part of this unit, instead of indenting for fresh paillasses, which were available, made an attempt to recover some of those which had been taken away by the other part of the unit which had moved, taking all the bedding with them. Paillasses were subsequently issued from store.

Mr. Kennedy: Am I to understand that no complaint was received?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: The right hon. Gentleman kindly visited me and called my attention to this matter, when I discovered the facts as set out in the question, and, as he has heard, the paillasses were provided as soon as they were asked for.

BOOTS.

Mr. Horabin: asked the Secretary of State for War when he anticipates that all soldiers will be supplied with the regulation two pairs of Army boots?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: Instructions were issued a month ago for the issue of a second pair of boots to all soldiers at home, and issue should be nearly completed.

DEATH PENALTY.

Mr. Creech Jones: asked the Secretary of State for War whether before the execution of any death penalty inflicted by a military court on a soldier at home or abroad, the facts and evidence will be submitted to him, and his endorsement of the sentence obtained?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: As regards home, the answer is "Yes, Sir." In the case of troops on active service abroad, the approval of the officer in chief command of the forces is necessary.

Mr. Creech Jones: Will the right hon. Gentleman give serious consideration to the proposal in the question, because of the extreme gravity of the sentence that may be inflicted?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: Yes, Sir. The sentence is confined to extremely grave offences. The number of these offences has been reduced, and it is necessary for the Commander-in-Chief to have discretion in that very limited number of cases.

HARDSHIPS TRIBUNAL.

Miss Ward: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will give an assurance that while advantage is taken of the knowledge of paying rent allow ance acquired by the Unemployment Assistance Board, the investigation carried out into circumstances of applicants applying to the Military Hardships Tribunal will not be made by the officials of the Board?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: The officials of the Board have special qualifications and are widely distributed over the country. So far as my Department can judge, their work has been fairly and efficiently done, and no reason is seen for any change in this arrangement. It would be extremely wasteful to set up a parallel organisation of new officials throughout the country.

Miss Ward: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that I am not asking for new officials, but that the officials should be under the control of the War Office and not connected with the Unemployment Assistance Board, not that I am casting any reflection on the officials of the Board, because everyone recognises their efficiency?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: As I endeavoured to make plain, they must either be the existing officials or new ones.

HORSES (PURCHASE).

Major Sir Jocelyn Lucas: asked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the fact that the War Office is establishing a register of owners of horses who are desirous of selling to the Government at a reasonable figure, should they be required, he will now state to whom horse-owners should write enclosing details; and whether, to save needless correspondence, he will make known the type or types of horses likely to be required?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: Information as to the types of horses which may be needed will shortly be published. Owners wishing to be registered should then write to the War Office.

RESERVE OF OFFICERS.

Mr. Butcher: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he can give any information with regard to the position of officers in the various officer reserves?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: The desire of officers of the various reserves to know their position and prospects is well understood by the War Office, and to meet this desire a new scheme has been prepared. Interviewing boards will be established at various centres. Officers will appear before these boards, who will report upon their qualifications. The War Office will then inform the officers whether they are likely to be required within three months or six months, or whether their prospects of employment are remote. It is hoped that this arrangement will enable the officers in question to make their plans with greater certainty. Details of the scheme and the classes of officers to which it is applicable will be published.

Mr. Butcher: All other things being equal, will my right hon. Friend give preference to men who are unemployed at the time of their appearance before the board?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: In war, I am afraid, we can give preference only to merit.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRISONERS OF WAR (COST).

Colonel Wedgwood: asked the Secretary of State for War what is the estimated cost of the prison for officer-prisoners in the North of England, including food, rent, upkeep, protection.

wages, etc.; how many prisoners there are; and what it amounts to per head?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: The rent of the camp in question has not yet been settled, but, apart from this, the cost is about £50 a day, of which £45 is in respect of staff. There are 21 prisoners at present in the camp, which is adequate to accommodate 200.

Colonel Wedgwood: Would it not be cheaper to keep them at the Ritz and allow them to go home if they are prepared to take the risk?

Mr. Gallacher: Does it not cost over £2 a day to keep them?

Captain Shaw: Would my right hon. Friend consider keeping these people in caravans?

Oral Answers to Questions — OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS (EXPORT).

Captain Plugge: asked the Secretary of State for War whether, at the present time, all official publications issued by the Stationery Office, and, in particular, the OFFICIAL REPORT of Proceedings in Parliament, are permitted to be exported freely from this country; and what steps are taken to ensure that these publications contain no information of value to the enemy?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: Official publications may be exported freely from this country to all non-censorable countries, and to all censorable countries provided they are exported by a permit holder. Care is naturally taken in the preparation of official publications to secure that they do not contain information which it would be undesirable to disclose. As regards the OFFICIAL REPORTS of Proceedings in Parliament, the same result can be safely assured by the natural discretion of Members of both Houses.

Miss Wilkinson: Do we understand the reply to mean that the OFFICIAL REPORTS are so carefully drawn up that they contain no real information of value to anybody, including this House?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: They are OFFICIAL REPORTS of the speeches of hon. Members, including hon. Ladies.

Mr. Thorne: Would you lead the House to believe that the Germans do not know what is going on in this House?

Oral Answers to Questions — EVACUATION OF PARLIAMENT.

Colonel Wedgwood: asked the PrimeMinister whether he will give an opportunity for the discussion of the Motion standing in the name of the right hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme and other Members against the evacuation of Parliament from London save only by vote of the House?

[That in the opinion of this House no evacuation of Parliament from London in case of air raids shall take place or be decided on without the definite assent of this House to that policy.]

The Prime Minister (Mr. Chamberlain): In view of the Business statement made last week I fear I can hold out no hope of time being found for the discussion of the Motion standing in the name of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman.

Colonel Wedgwood: May I understand from that that the Prime Minister is not prepared to evacuate this House without a Vote of the House on the question? Is he aware of the grave demoralisation which such evacuation would cause, and also that in such a matter it is for this House not to take but to give orders?

The Prime Minister: The question was whether I could give time for the discussion of this Motion, and I am obliged to say that I could not.

Colonel Wedgwood: May we understand that as long as this Motion is not discussed this House will not be evacuated?

Oral Answers to Questions — LOCATION OF INDUSTRY (COMMISSION'S REPORT).

Sir P. Harris: asked the PrimeMinister whether, as the report of the Royal Commission on the Location of Industry is already set up in galley proof, he will now ask for its publication, seeing the small additional cost of labour in volved and the urgency of the problems it deals with?

The Prime Minister: The report in its final form has not yet been signed by all the members. I understand that I may expect to receive it early next month. I will consider then how soon it can be published.

Sir P. Harris: Are we to understand that there is no special reason why it should be held up, that it is purely a matter of signatures being obtained to the report and the Government having a chance to see it, and that there is no desire to withhold it?

The Prime Minister: That is so. The delay has been occasioned by the fact that members of the Commission are dispersed and that some corrections had to be made.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNITED STATES EXCHANGE RATE.

Mr. Craven-Ellis: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what advantage is gained by this country maintaining the official rate of the sterling-dollar exchange at 4.03 when sterling is quoted in New York at 3.76?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir John Simon): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) on 26th September. The official rate of the sterling-dollar exchange is that at which our imports are paid for and a depreciation in that rate must tend to involve a further rise in the cost of living.

Mr. Craven-Ellis: Is the right hon. Gentleman paying no attention to exports?

Colonel Wedgwood: Is not this a penalising tax upon our exports from this country to the United States of America?

Sir J. Simon: Certain advantages are obtained from these rates.

Oral Answers to Questions — OVERSEAS INVESTMENTS.

Mr. Stokes: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will take steps to see that our holdings of overseas investments are not depleted as a result of his borrowings in the current financial year?

Sir J. Simon: Power has been taken to mobilise certain existing investments to assist in paying for our essential imports and in present circumstances it is clearly in the national interests that they should be used for this purpose in so far as may be desirable from time to time. As regards further investment abroad. it is,


of course, not possible in war-time that capital should be freely available for that purpose. Apart from these special measures, I see no reason why our holdings of overseas investments should be depleted as a result of borrowing.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL SAVINGS.

Mr. Stokes: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the Government's declaration that borrowings will only be from genuine savings, he will state the estimated value of the net annual savings for the 12 months ended 31st December, 1938, or 31st March, 1939, whichever is the more convenient?

Sir J. Simon: No official estimate of the amount of savings is available. But I may say I look forward to a big increase in savings under war conditions, if people will only realise how important is the contribution they can make thereby to winning the war. I may add that the declaration to which the hon. Member alludes was not and could not be founded on estimates of the amount of savings; its essential point was that the Government will do all in their power to avoid having recourse to inflationary expedients.

Oral Answers to Questions — BANK RATE.

Mr. Stokes: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what control he has over the fixing of the Bank Rate; and whether he will indicate the procedure adopted by the Treasury when consulting the court of the Bank of England on the subject of fixing the Bank Rate?

Sir J. Simon: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave him on 7th November. I am, of course, in constant communication with the Bank of England, and especially so in war time. The methods of communication are mainly informal and such as are most convenient from time to time.

Mr. Stokes: Will the Chancellor say whether in fact the effective control of the Bank Rate is not in the hands of the Treasury Committee of the Bank of England, and is he prepared to name the people who form that Committee?

Sir J. Simon: No, I do not think I should be prepared to give the names. The procedure is very well understood.

Mr. Stokes: Is there any reason why the House should not have the names of the people who form that Committee?

Mr. Stephen: What is there to hide?

Oral Answers to Questions — OLD AGE PENSIONS.

Mr. Dunn: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when this House can expect to receive his report of his investigations into the question of increasing payments to old age pensioners?

Sir J. Simon: These investigations are proceeding, but I cannot yet say when I shall be able to report the result.

Mr. Vyvyan Adams: Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer treat this as a matter of great urgency?

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.

Mr. Thurtle: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been drawn to the cases of civil servants employed in the fighting Services Departments who have declared themselves to be conscientious objectors to military service, and whose objection has been sustained by the tribunals; and whether he is satisfied that the continued employment of these men in the fighting Services Departments is not injurious to the interests of the State or to the moral character of the individuals concerned?

Sir J. Simon: Where a civil servant employed in a fighting Services Department has declared himself to be a conscientious objector to military service and where the objection has been sustained by a tribunal, no automatic action would be taken against the individual concerned in the matter of his civil employment. If, however, such an individual refuses, or asks to be relieved of the necessity, to perform any Departmental duty appropriately allotted to him as a civil servant, he cannot be retained in the Civil Service.

Mr. Thurtle: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is against all reason and commonsense that these fighting Departments should have on their staff persons who are conscientious objectors to all the work the Departments are doing?

Mr. Stephen: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that those men have got to live, the same as the hon. Member who put this question?

Mr. Thurtle: Could I have a reply to my question?

Brigadier-General Sir Henry Croft: Can those who are conscientious objectors possibly remain in the service? If so, are they not acting contrary to the opinions expressed before tribunals by such conscientious objectors?

Sir J. Simon: I do not think that it is necessarily right to dispense with the services of a man who is working in a Department in London and who is not being asked to do anything but work in a Department in London if he finds it possible to do it.

Mr. Thurtle: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that it may be part of the duty of these persons to send orders to other young men to be called up and do a share of the fighting?

Mr. Stephen: Have not these men to earn a livelihood as well as the hon. Member for Shoreditch (Mr. Thurtle)?

Mr. McGovem: The hon. Member for Shoreditch (Mr. Thurtle) seems to be developing a Hitler mentality.

REQUISITIONED PREMISES.

Mr. Levy: asked the First Commissioner of Works how many hotels and similar establishments which were commandeered, pending occupation by Government Departments, have now been relinquished; and what is the estimated cost of temporarily taking over those places which were not required?

The First Commissioner of Works (Mr. Ramsbotham): The number of hotels released by my Department is two. The question of compensation is under consideration, and, pending discussion, I am not in a position to furnish an estimate.

Oral Answers to Questions — BANKERS' INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT COMPANY.

Mr. Pritt: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why the ad valorem stamp duty of £60,000 on the incorporation of the Bankers' Industrial Development Company was never paid, or if paid, was thereafter refunded?

Sir J. Simon: I would refer the hon. and learned Member to the provisions of Section 45 of the Finance Act, 1930.

Oral Answers to Questions — ARMED FORCES (DEPENDANTS' ALLOWANCES).

Mr. James Griffiths: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury how many applications for dependants' allowances have been received from unmarried men serving in the armed Forces; how many of these applications have been granted, and how many refused; what is the average amount of allowances paid; and what the total cost is at the present rate of payment?

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Captain Crookshank): I have made inquiries from the Service Departments and I understand that the total number of applications for dependants' allowances received up to a recent date was some 63,800, of which 11,800 have been admitted and 21,500 rejected. It would not be possible, without disproportionate expenditure of time and labour, to ascertain precisely how many of these applications were from unmarried men and what is the average amount and total cost of allowances in payment.

Mr. Griffiths: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that there is growing dissatisfaction in regard to this matter, and will he go into it carefully and consider revision?

Captain Crookshank: Questions on this subject had better be addressed to my right hon. Friends who are in charge of the Service Departments.

Mr. Gallacher: Is a family means test applied before dependants' allowances are given?

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

GOVERNMENT TRACTORS AND PLOUGHS.

Mr. Boothby: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware that Government tractors and ploughs are now being held in store in various agricultural districts in Scotland; and whether he will give instructions for their immediate release to farmers who wish to purchase them?

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Colville): It is necessary to have a reserve of tractors and implements in connection with the Government's scheme for increased cultivation, but arrangements are made, whenever possible, to release machines for private purchase, and a number have already been released. I am sending my hon. Friend a copy of the circular issued on 3rd November to agricultural executive committees giving details of the Government's scheme.

Mr. Boothby: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, in certain districts in Scotland, farmers have been prevented from ploughing during the last few critical weeks by their inability to obtain tractors or ploughs, which were, in fact, stored in those districts; and will he do all in his power to release such implements, where practicable, in order that farmers may put them to good use?

Sir R. W. Smith: Is my right hon. friend aware that, in certain cases, farmers have purchased their tractors, but are unable to obtain ploughs to use with them, although these ploughs are stored by the Government?

Mr. Lunn: Does that not apply to England as well as to Scotland?

Mr. Colville: I cannot answer for England. I know that implements in considerable number are available, and if my hon. Friends like to discuss the matter with me I will see what I can do to help.

Mr. R. Gibson: While these implements are held by the Government will they be available for hire?

Mr. Colville: That is not part of the scheme.

THEATRES AND CINEMAS (SUNDAY OPENING).

Mr. R. Gibson: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has considered the protest by the Church of Scotland Presbytery of Greenock against the proposal to open theatres and cinemas on Sunday; and whether he has any statement to make on the subject?

Mr. Colville: I have received the representations referred to in the question and have duly noted the views expressed.

Mr. Gibson: Will the Minister keep in view the desirability of the employes of these places having a weekly day of rest

and the fact that opening for an extra day does not necessarily mean an increase in the weekly attendance?

Mr. Colville: I will keep those points in mind, if the question arises.

Mr. Mathers: Will the right hon. Gentleman remember that there are places in Scotland other than Greenock where the same views are held?

Sir R. W. Smith: Will my right hon. Friend note that a part of the representation put before him spoke of the spiritual resources of Scotland, and will he impress upon the churches the need for providing some alternative interest in the evening so that young people are not compelled to stay out in the streets in the dark?

ST. ANDREW'S HOUSE, EDINBURGH.

Mr. Mathers: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware of the dissatisfaction that is felt about the prospect of a staff drinking bar being established in St. Andrew's House, Edinburgh; and whether he has given this his approval or will he take steps to prevent this development?

Mr. R. Gibson: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what precedents he can quote for civil servants in Scotland applying for a licence for Government premises?

Mr. Colville: It is not intended to establish a" staff drinking bar" but to provide for the sale of drinks with meals at the staff luncheon club at St. Andrew's House. I am not aware of any dissatisfaction with the proposal. There has not hitherto been a combined luncheon club for the staffs of the Scottish Departments, and the present proposal is in accordance with practice in comparable cases in the Civil Service.

Mr. Mathers: When the right hon. Gentleman says "comparable cases," does he mean in Scotland; and is not this an innovation in Scotland which will be looked upon with very great suspicion?

Mr. Colville: St. Andrew's House is itself a big innovation. There is a big concentration of staffs.

Mr. Gibson: Do I understand from the right hon. Gentleman that there are no. precedents for such a licence?

AGRICULTURAL WORKERS (RELEASE FROM ARMED FORCES).

Mr. Boothby: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will make arrangements for agricultural workers between the ages of 18 and 20, who are indispensable for the efficient working of farms, to be released at the earliest opportunity?

Mr. Colville: All requests submitted to me for release from the Forces of workers, irrespective of age, on the grounds that they are indispensable for agriculture are carefully investigated. In appropriate cases, recommendations for permanent or temporary release are made to the Service Department concerned, with whom, as my hon. Friend will appreciate, the final decision in each case must rest.

LOCAL AUTHORITIES' HOUSES (RESTRICTIONS).

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland the number of local authorities which have agreed to waive restrictions on the keeping of poultry by tenants of council houses, and the number which have not done so?

Mr. Colville: I regret that I am unable to supply the information requested by my hon. Friend, but I am considering the issue of a circular to local authorities upon the subject.

Sir T. Moore: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether, during the war, in view of the extreme shortage of accommodation, all restrictions imposed by Scottish local authorities on the housing of lodgers in council houses are being suspended?

Mr. Colville: Restrictions on the keeping of lodgers by tenants of council houses are imposed at the discretion of the local authority, and I understand that it is a usual condition of the letting of council houses that the consent of the local authority is required to the keeping of lodgers. I have no reason to believe that under present conditions consent will be unreasonably withheld where the local circumstances are such that any restrictions imposed in the past ought to be relaxed.

Sir T. Moore: Would my right hon. Friend consider notifying the local authorities who are in charge of reception areas that this restriction should be minimised as far as possible?

Mr. Colville: I am anxious not to interfere with the discretion of local authorities, who are aware of the conditions in their areas, but I will bear in mind the point.

RENT ARREARS (SOLDIERS' DEPENDANTS, KIRKCALDY).

Mr. Kennedy: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware that the dependants of men serving in the Army in France who are unable to pay arrears of rent out of the allowance granted have been ordered to leave their homes in Kirkcaldy within three weeks; and whether any means are available for the protection of tenants whose arrears are due to circumstances attributable directly or indirectly to the war?

Mr. Colville: I am informed that no tenants of council houses in Kirkcaldy have in the last two months been ordered by the town council to leave their homes. I have no information about the position of tenants of privately-owned houses in the burgh. As regards the second part of the question, I would point out that it is open to members of the Armed Forces in cases of hardship to apply to the Military Service (Special Allowances) Advisory Committee for assistance in meeting their financial obligations, including rent.

Mr. Kennedy: If I send information to the right hon. Gentleman will he look into it?

Mr. Colville: I will certainly look into any information, if the right hon. Gentleman brings it to my notice.

Mr. Cassells: Are not the tenants entitled to legal protection under the emergency legislation?

Mr. Colville: I will look into that point also, but I have no information, except with regard to tenants of council houses.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY.

STORES AND TIMBER (PRICE INCREASE).

Mr. Kennedy: asked the Secretary for Mines what proportion of the officially


authorised increase in the price of coal to the consumer is due to the increase in the cost of timber, pit-props, repairs, oil and stores, respectively?

The Secretary for Mines (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): The increase on account of stores and timber was 5½d. in respect of England and Scotland and 8½d. in respect of Wales. Nothing was included for increased cost of repairs.

MINEWORKERS (ARMED FORCES).

Mr. Levy: asked the Secretary for Mines whether there has been any undue recruitment of young men from the coalfields; and whether it is intended to recall these men from the armed Forces in order that they may resume their normal work in the pits, in view of the necessity of increasing the output of coal for home and export markets?

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Brown): I have been asked to reply. In general, I think that the Schedule of Reserved Occupations has afforded the mining industry the protection to which it is entitled. I have the matter under constant review and, as I have already said in reply to a previous question, some of the ages of reservation have been reduced. Moreover, a number of miners have been released from the Territorial Army as part of the general arrangement to return to industry certain men in vital occupations recruited in peace time.

Mr. George Griffiths: Could the right hon. Gentleman say that not only members of the Territorial Army but members who have been called up for the Regular Army, who are key men in the industry at the present time, shall also be returned?

Mr. Brown: It is difficult to see how members of the Regular Army could be key men.

Mr. James Hall: Could the right hon. Gentleman state what is the age up to which the exemption ranges?

Mr. Brown: The hon. Member will see that there is a whole series and it is a long list.

Mr. G. Griffiths: May I ask whether the key men to whom I have referred—men between the ages of 18 and 21—are being recalled?

Mr. Brown: The hon. Member is probably thinking of reservists.

BLACK-OUT (WORKERS).

Mr. J. Griffiths: asked the Secretary for Mines whether he is aware that coal miners are experiencing difficulties and incurring risks in travelling to and from work on account of the black-out; and whether he will investigate this matter and consider what arrangements can be made to minimise these difficulties and risks?

Mr. Lloyd: If, as I understand, the hon. Member is referring to difficulties which are experienced on colliery premises, I would point out that arrangements have already been made by which certain defined standards of lighting may be used, subject to the authority of the local officer of police, and I hope that colliery managements will take full advantage of these arrangements. If any cases where there is difficulty in giving effect to them are brought to my notice, I will certainly have them investigated, but they could be dealt with more speedily if they were brought directly to the notice of the divisional inspector of mines.

Mr. E. J. Williams: Will it be possible to arrange that the miners themselves should carry their lamps so that they may have light when they go to and fro?

Mr. Lloyd: It is a very difficult question.

Sir Ernest Shepperson: Will the hon. Gentleman give the same concession to Members of this House?

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL DEFENCE.

AIR-RAID PRECAUTIONS VEHICLES (PETROL).

Mr. J. Griffiths: asked the Secretary for Mines what distributing agency supplies petrol for vehicles engaged in airraid precautions and other Civil Defence work; and whether he will consider using the agency of the ordinary petrol distributors for this purpose, in view of the hardships now being experienced by these traders?

Mr. Lloyd: Local authorities were advised that they should make special arrangements to lay down stocks of petrol for A.R.P. and other Civil Defence work


in order to ensure that the necessary supplies would be available when and where required. I am not aware of the agencies employed for this purpose by the various authorities concerned. In the public interest it would, I consider, be inexpedient to interfere with the discretion of the local authorities in the matter.

SHOPS (HOURS OF CLOSING).

Mr. Leach: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will consent to the wishes of off-licence holders, that their hours of opening may be the same as the regular shopping hours of the district in which their premises may be situated?

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peake): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given on 16th November to a similar question by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Boulton).

REGIONAL COMMISSIONERS (LONDON).

Mr. Levy: asked the Home Secretary whether it is intended to appoint a senior regional commissioner for the London region; if so, why has the appointment been delayed; and can he now give the name of this official?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Home Security (Mr. Mabane): My right hon. Friend has no such proposal under consideration at the present time.

Sir T. Moore: Why has not my right hon. Friend solved this problem by appointing one of the most outstanding figures of the country, Admiral Sir Reginald Evans of the Broke, who is at present joint regional commissioner, to act as the senior regional commissioner?

ILLUMINATED SIGNS.

Mr. David Adams: asked the Home Secretary whether he is prepared to permit chemists, doctors, dispensaries, and other persons or institutions coninected with the health services to display a distinctive blue-lighted sign at night, both to enable people returning from work to get medical attention or to have prescriptions dispensed, and to ensure the provision of first-aid facilities for casualties in the event of air-raids?

Mr. Mabane: My right hon. Friend is arranging to permit the use of an

illuminated sign in shops, including chemists'. Hospitals and first-aid posts are already authorised to use night signs. He has received no representations that a similar concession should be made to doctors.

Mr. Adams: May I inquire when this singular innovation will be introduced all round?

Mr. Mabane: My right hon. Friend has had discussions with members of the retail trades organisations, and he hopes the arrangements will be complete in a few-days.

Mr. R. Gibson: Is a particular type of light being specified?

Mr. Mabane: indicated assent.

AIR-RAID SHELTERS.

Mr. David Adams: asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that covered-in trenches are being provided by the municipality in a northern city in the outlying regions furthest from military objectives, where each house has a garden in which its own shelter or trench could be put, whereas densely inhabited parts of the city are left almost unprovided for; and whether he will take urgent steps to ensure that suburban dwellers who can afford Anderson shelters or other protection should provide this for themselves, and that industrial workers who have no accommodation for Anderson shelters and who are exposed to much greater danger should receive the immediate attention of the municipalities?

Mr. Mabane: My right hon. Friend has written to the hon. Member asking him for the name of the city to which he refers. On receiving this information, my right hon. Friend will make immediate inquiries, and will then communicate with the hon. Member.

Mr. Adams: I am obliged to the hon. Member, but I have here a sealed envelope—

Mr. Speaker: rose—

Oral Answers to Questions — PETROL RATIONING (TAXICABS AND PRIVATE-HIRE CARS).

Mr. Markham: asked the Secretary for Mines whether he has now considered the representations put before him by the


Nottingham Streamline Taxicab Association and other bodies for an increase in the petrol ration for provincial taxicabs; and whether he can now make a statement?

Mr. Lloyd: Yes, Sir, I have decided to make certain adjustments in the petrol allowances made to the lower-powered provincial taxicabs to bring them into closer relationship to the allowances made in respect of London taxicabs and the maximum allowance made in respect of provincial taxicabs. I have also made

Horse power.
Provincial Taxicabs.
Private Hire.


Present total monthly allowances.
New total monthly allowances.
Present total monthly allowances.
New total monthly allowances.






Gallons.
Gallons.
Gallons.
Gallons.


1–9
…
…
…
43
50
29
33


10–12
…
…
…
50
60
34
40


13–15
…
…
…
60
70
40
47


16–19
…
…
…
68
80
45
53


20 and over
…
…
90
90
60
60

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF SUPPLY.

MILITARY GREATCOATS.

Captain Ramsay: asked the Minister of Supply whether he is aware that the new specifications recently issued for military greatcoats, while making little difference in the resulting material in comparison with that previously produced along Tweedside, will cause great delay and heavy expenses to the mills concerned; and whether he will consider allowing them to work to the previous specifications for the present?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply (Colonel Llewellin): In order to accelerate the production of material for greatcoats an alternative specification was introduced in the summer. After experience of the cloth thus produced, however, it was decided to revert to the original specification, since the cloth which it yields is more satisfactory in respect of handling, waterproofing and length of life. A number of mills in Scotland are weaving cloth to this specification, apparently without difficulty, and my right hon. Friend is not aware of any justification for the change suggested by my hon. and gallant Friend.

corresponding increases in the allowances for the lower-powered private-hire cars. The new scales will operate as from 23rd November and I am circulating details in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Markham: Can the Minister give the precise percentages with regard to the situation in Nottingham?

Mr. Lloyd: I think these increases would apply to Nottingham as well.

Following is the information:

COLLIERY TIMBER (PRICE).

Mr. Whiteiey: asked the Minister of Supply whether his attention has been called to the excessive rates charged by firms for colliery timber; that contract prices are being cancelled and full maximum prices charged; and whether he will have full inquiries made into this system of profiteering?

Colonel Llewellin: Colliery timber cannot be sold at prices higher than the maxima fixed by the Control of Timber (No. 1 and 2 Orders) 1939, which are not excessive. It would not be practicable for my right hon. Friend to fix a price for each contract, and whether in particular cases a contract should be cancelled or a lower price than the maximum should be agreed upon is a matter for settlement between the parties.

Mr. Whiteley: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in this case the particular timber has been stocked long before the war, that contract prices were fixed for timber and that now the contract price has been altered and brought up to the maximum price?

Colonel Llewellin: My right hon. Friend cannot issue an order dealing with


individual contracts. What he has tried to do is to issue an order putting on a proper maximum price. Of course, whether there has been a breach of contract between a colliery and a timber supplier must be a matter for the courts and not for the Minister.

Mr. Whiteley: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this is a case for the profiteering Act? This is surely a case of profiteering where the timber has been stocked and the people who have owned the timber have deliberately raised the price to the maximum price?

Colonel Llewellin: Without knowing the details I could not agree with what the hon. Member suggests, but if he will send the particulars of the particular contract he has in mind I will certainly inquire into it.

Oral Answers to Questions — PORTUGUESE EAST AFRICA AND MOZAMBIQUE (DEFENCE).

Mr. Mander: asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he will make inquiries and inform the House as to the nature of the agreement made by the Government of the Union of South Africa for the defence of Portuguese East Africa and Mozambique?

The Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs (Mr. Eden): I am not aware of any such agreement.

Mr. Mander: In view of the reported speech of the Prime Minister of South Africa dealing with this matter, will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to make inquiries?

Mr. Eden: I saw General Smuts' speech and it did not refer to any agreement.

Mr. Mander: If I can call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the passage in question, will he be good enough to make further inquiries?

Mr. Eden: I have already read it, but I will gladly read it again.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT.

JARROW TUNNEL SCHEME.

Miss Wilkinson: asked the Minister of Transport what stage has been reached in the. preliminary work on the Jarrow

tunnel scheme; and whether, and if so when, it is proposed to begin work on this, in view of the urgent need for this mid-Tyne cross-communication?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Bernays): The results of the trial borings and the mineral survey are now available and the consulting engineers have informed my right hon. Friend that their report will be completed within the next three months. It will then be for the local authorities concerned to formulate definite proposals, which my right hon. Friend will be prepared to consider in the light of the circumstances then existing.

FRUIT MERCHANTS (PETROL SUPPLIES).

Mr. Price: asked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware that a large home apple crop will shortly come on the market and that fruit merchants have inadequate petrol supplies to enable this crop to be moved from the markets to the consuming centres; and whether he will consider what steps can be taken to deal with the matter?

Mr. Bernays: Due consideration will be given to any applications for supplementary fuel rations for the purpose of enabling apples to be carried from the markets to consuming centres by road where this method of transport is appropriate.

Mr. De la Bére: Does my hon. Friend not realise that this is particularly necessary in Evesham, where there has been a wonderful apple crop this year?

Oral Answers to Questions — REFUGEES.

Mr. Mander: asked the Prime Minister whether he is now able to make a statement with reference to the conference of the Inter-Governmental Committee on Refugees recently held in Washington, at the invitation of the President of the United States of America, to discuss the European refugee problem?

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Butler): The conference of the vice-chairmen of the Inter-Governmental Committee for Refugees was held in Washington from 17th October to 26th October at the invitation of President Roosevelt. My right hon. Friend the Paymaster-General, chairman


of the committee, attended as the representative of His Majesty's Government. Full advantage was taken of the opportunity to discuss on an international basis the large-scale settlement of refugees in the changed circumstances due to the war. Agreement was reached on all the major issues which arose.

Mr. Mander: Can any of the resolutions that were passed be published?

Mr. Butler: I will refer the hon. Member's request to the committee.

Mr. Gallacher: Is it not the case that the Government have decided to drop all idea of supplying any funds to these refugees?

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL REGISTER (ENUMERATORS' PAYMENT).

Mr. Leach: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that some of the enumerators on the work of National Registration have not yet received the payment due to them for their work, and can he say when they will do so?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Horsbrugh): Yes, Sir. Efforts have been made to expedite the settlement of these 55,000 accounts; but it will be understood that progress has depended upon the submission of consolidated claims for each area by local national registration officers, who were not in a position to prepare any final accounts until less than a month ago, as well as upon the headquarters accounting staff. In the circumstances indicated, I am not in a position to specify by what date all payments will be received by enumerators. Local officers have, however, already been pressed to expedite the claims in all areas for which they have not as yet been submitted, and I can assure the hon. Member that all claims received which are found in order will be met without delay.

Mr. R. C. Morrison: Will the hon. Lady bear in mind that many of these people who have been engaged in National Registration had been unemployed for some time? Surely it is unreasonable to expect them, now that they have got some work, to wait over two months before they get any pay?

Miss Horsbrugh: I think the hon. Member will have seen from the answer

that every effort has been made to expedite the payments. Many of the claims have been met, and the outstanding ones will be met after the final conclusion has been made.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT BORROWING (NATIONAL SAVINGS CERTIFICATES AND DEFENCE BONDS).

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: (by Private Notice) asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has any statement to make on the Government's borrowing programme.

Sir J. Simon: Yes, Sir. The House will remember that in my last Budget Statement I said that, when the time came for borrowing for the expense of the war, it would be found that various kinds of loan would be offered, appropriate for different types of investor. The date has not yet arrived to issue a loan on the open market, but I have now to announce that two securities will be on sale as from to-morrow morning, which have been designed to enable all citizens, even of small or very moderate means, to make their contribution.
The first of these securities will be a new issue of National Savings Certificates, for assisting to finance the war, which will replace the current issue henceforward. The new issue will be on exactly the same lines as the present, and will carry with it the same benefits in such things as exemption from Income Tax. A certificate can be encashed at any time. The purchase price of the new Certificates will be unchanged at 15s., but the interest will be slightly increased, so that the Certificate will accumulate to 17s. 6d. after five years and to 20s. 6d. after the full period of 10 years. Subject to a few exceptions, into which I need not enter, no individual may hold more than 500 Savings Certificates of whatever issue. The House will appreciate that that restriction must be continued. Anyone of any income can buy Savings Certificates, and if they could be bought in unlimited amounts, their freedom from Income Tax would make them much too expensive a method of borrowing.
I now come to a second security, which is of a novel kind. There are a great number of people, many of them by no means wealthy, who already hold the


maximum of 500 Certificates; and I hope that there will be a great many more persona who reach that limit before long. I must provide some method, suitable to their circumstances, to enable them to lend fresh money to the State. The new security will be known as a Defence Bond, and will be purchaseable in units of £5. It will be on sale to-morrow and until further notice. It will be issued at par, and will bear interest at 3 per cent. per annum, and it will be repayable seven years from the date of purchase at a premium of £1 per cent., if not cashed before. It will be repayable at par plus any accrued interest at any time after six months' notice; and special arrangements have been made to enable the bondholder, in case of private emergency, to obtain repayment at once, subject to an adjustment of the interest then payable. The interest on this Bond will be subject to Income Tax, but tax will not be deducted at the source, so that bondholders who are not subject to Income Tax at the standard rate will escape the formalities necessary to secure repayment of tax.
In view of the special privileges attached to these bonds, no individual will be allowed to hold more than £1,000 of the Defence Bonds, but he may purchase up to £1,000 worth of the bonds in addition to holding the maximum of 500 Savings Certificates. If he does not hold 500 Savings Certificates, or even if he holds no Savings Certificates at all, there is nothing to prevent him purchasing up to £1,000 worth of the new bonds, but in such a case, the course which will usually pay the investor best is first to make up his holding of Savings Certificates to the maximum of 500, and then to put additional savings into the new bond.
The new certificate and the Defence Bond will be on sale to-morrow at post offices, savings banks and joint stock banks throughout the country. I have arranged for the terms of the certificate and copies of the prospectus of the bond to be available for Members at the Vote Office.
In addition to these new securities which the Government are issuing, the Post Office Savings Bank and the trustee savings banks will continue to offer their facilities to the public, and any increase in the money deposited in those banks will

serve the same national purpose as money invested in the new securities.
As in the last war, the campaign throughout the country in support of these issues has been entrusted to the National Savings Movement. The movement, with its many thousands of voluntary workers, has already responded enthusiastically to my request. To the National Savings Committee in England and Wales, the Scottish Savings Committee, the Post Office Savings Bank and all who assist it, and to the trustee savings banks, I should like to express my thanks for the preparatory work they have already done, and my conviction that their efforts will be crowned with success. In Northern Ireland there has come into existence a new body, the Ulster Savings Committee, which has made it its duty, under the Government of Northern Ireland, to carry out a War Savings campaign in Ulster. Moreover, the Government of Northern Ireland have undertaken to issue a new Ulster Savings Certificate, on terms identical with those of our new National Savings Certificate, and to relend 75 per cent. of the gross proceeds of sale to the Imperial Exchequer. I should like to express warm appreciation of this action by the Government of Northern Ireland, which will ensure a valuable addition to our financial resources.
Such are the arrangements which I am now able to announce for securing from citizens, even of very moderate income, loans from their savings towards the severe expenses of war. The House and the country will, I hope, give their full support to the present appeal, the success of which will be a vital contribution in helping to bring us victory in the struggle in which we are engaged.

Mr. Leach: Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the proposals made by Mr. J. M. Keynes; and, if so, what does he think of them?

Sir J. Simon: I have no communication to make to the hon. Member on that subject.

Mr. Garro Jones: In view of the fact that the yield on Defence Bonds is 3 per cent., will the right hon. Gentleman state what the yield on the Savings Certificates will be; and also, whether the yield on these two classes of securities will be any indication of the yield on loans issued in larger units?

Sir J. Simon: The hon. Gentleman, no doubt, is aware that really no inference can be drawn from these special and short-term transactions. That has always been the experience. It is not possible, in answer to a question, to state precisely the calculation of the yield on Savings Certificates, because, as the hon. Gentleman knows, they are so constructed that the interest is very small at the beginning, and it then tends to rise, the idea being to encourage people to keep them, as indeed they usually do; but if he likes I will have a calculation made, and see if I can communicate it to him.

Mr. J. Morgan: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether individual members of families can hold units of £500 of these certificates?

Sir J. Simon: That has been the rule which is normally followed. Every individual in the country, rich or poor, is entitled to hold £500 worth.

Mr. Gallacher: Is the Chancellor of the Exchequer aware that there are many individuals in the country who cannot afford to hold either £500, or 500s. or good.?

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMAN MINE-LAYING (BRITISH RETALIATION).

Mr. Attlee: I desire to ask the Prime Minister—whom I am glad to see back in his place—a Question of which I have given private notice, namely, in view of the fact that the laying of mines such as that which sank the "Simon Bolivar" during the last week-end in trade routes and without warning is contrary to international law, whether His Majesty's Government propose to take any action thereupon?

The Prime Minister: I should like to make my grateful acknowledgment to the right hon. Gentleman for his courteous reference to my recovery from the respectable complaint from which I have been suffering.
In reply to the right hon. Gentleman's question, the House will be aware that during the last three days upwards of 10 ships, six of which were neutrals, were sunk, with very serious loss of life, by German mines. The Hague Convention, to which Germany is a party, and which she announced her intention of observing as recently as 17th September last, provides that when anchored mines are used

every possible precaution must be taken for the security of peaceful navigation. This is the very essence of the Convention, as the mine cannot discriminate between warship and merchant ship, or between belligerent and neutral. The Convention particularly requires that the danger zone must be notified as soon as military exigencies permit, once the mines cease to be under observation by those who laid them. If unanchored mines are used, they must become harmless one hour at most after those who laid them have lost control over them.
None of these provisions has been observed by the German Government in laying the mines which occasioned the losses I have mentioned, and this fresh outrage is only the culmination of a series of violations of agreements to which Germany had set her hand. I need only recall the sinking of the "Athenia" with the loss of 112 lives and the subsequent destruction of British, Allied and neutral vessels by mine, torpedo or gunfire. These attacks have been made, often without warning and, to an increasing extent, with a complete disregard of the rules laid down in the Submarine Protocol to which Germany subscribed or of the most elementary dictates of humanity.
His Majesty's Government are not prepared to allow these methods of conducting warfare to continue without retaliation. I may remind the House that in the last war, as a measure of justified reprisal for submarine attacks on merchant ships, exports of German origin or ownership were made subject to seizure on the high seas. The many violations of international law and the ruthless brutality of German methods have decided us to follow a similar course now, and an Order-in-Council will shortly be issued giving effect to this decision.

Miss Wilkinson: Can the Prime Minister say whether his experts take the view that these merchant ships were sunk by any new type of magnetic mine?

The Prime Minister: I think that that matter is not one upon which any very definite opinion can be expressed at present.

Mr. J. Morgan: May I ask the Prime Minister whether his right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty can share his views with the rest of the House, and whether he has any fresh news to impart?

OFFICIAL SECRETS ACTS.

Ordered,
That the Report which, upon the 5th day of April last, was made from the Select Committee on the Official Secrets Acts be now taken into consideration."[The Prime Minister,]

Report considered accordingly.

3.58 p.m.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Chamberlain): I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in their conclusions."
The subject before the House, and which was before the Committee, is one which has been pushed out of our minds by the momentous events which have taken place since that report was made, but perhaps it will be convenient if I briefly recall to the House the sequence of the history of this affair. The incident which gave rise to the appointment of the Select Committee took place as long ago as June, 1938, and upon the 30th of that month I moved that a Select Committee be appointed. The Motion which I moved fell into two parts. The first part was concerned with the statement made by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwood (Mr. Sandys) and the action of the Ministers concerned. The second part directed the Committee to inquire generally into the question of the applicability of the Official Secrets Acts to Members of this House in the discharge of their parliamentary duties. The first report of the Committee, which dealt with the first part of their terms of reference, was printed on 27th July, 1938. It was circulated on 18th October, and on 5th December, nearly a year ago, I moved that the House should agree with the Committee in their report. As the result of a Debate which then took place, the House passed a Resolution:
That this House doth agree with the Committee in their Report,
and furthermore ordered:
That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the applicability of the Official Secrets Acts to Members of this House in the discharge of their Parliamentary duties, having regard to the undoubted privileges of this House as confirmed in the Bill of Rights.
The report of the Select Committee then being adopted was referred to the reappointed committee, and that committee issued their report on 5th April, 1939. It

is that report which is now before the House, and it is the conclusions of that committee which I am now asking the House to approve. I think we are all greatly indebted to the members of the committee for the very careful, thorough, and exhaustive examination which they made of this subject, which, although, as I said, it has rather been put into the background by other matters nevertheless remains one of primary importance to this House and to the Members of this House at any time. The report of the committee which examined every aspect of the case will remain on record as an authoritative exposition of the whole subject, to which reference will always be made if this question should at any future time be raised again.
I do not think it is necessary for me to trouble the House with any comments upon the body of the report, and I will come at once to the recommendations of the committee, which, if I may venture to say so, seem to me to be eminently sensible. The committee have recommended that we should not attempt by fresh legislation to try and define more specifically what is the extent of the immunity which Members of Parliament enjoy, or ought to enjoy, under the Official Secrets Acts, and they quote from Blackstone's "Commentaries" some words which I think put very clearly the objection to that course:
The dignity and independence of the two Houses (says Sir William Blackstone) are in great measure preserved by keeping their privileges indefinite. If all the privileges of Parliament were set down and ascertained, and no privilege to be allowed but what was so defined and determined, it were easy for the executive power to devise some new case, not within the line of privilege, and under pretence thereof to harrass any refractory Member and violate the freedom of Parliament.
Of course, that was a long time ago, and I do not suppose that anybody would think that the Executive nowadays would attempt any such invasion of the freedom of hon. Members. Nevertheless, the general proposition which is laid down by Sir William Blackstone still holds good. We have no doubt many times in the course of our experience considered whether, in dealing with Bills, it was or was not desirable to define with great particularity certain conditions under which Measures should become operative, and have come to the conclusion that the dangers of definition were greater than


the dangers of leaving the matter indefinite. In the following paragraph the Committee recognise that no doubt there are dangers, even in the limited immunity from prosecution under the Official Secrets Acts secured to Members by Parliamentary privilege, but they point out that those are risks which must be run if hon.' Members are to exercise freely their rights and privileges of free speech, and it is clear that in the opinion of the Committee the real safeguard against any such abuse lies in the good sense of hon. Members themselves. I believe that that is something to which we can safely trust, but even if there were some exceptional case in which an individual Member did not have proper regard to the general principle that this immunity is given to hon. Members for the service of the State and not for the purpose of endangering the safety of the State—even if there were such a Member, still the House itself, the body of Members, have it in their power to inflict penalties upon a Member who did so abuse his position, and I have no doubt they would not hesitate to do so.
So, the Committee's recommendation is that the case should be left where it is at present, but they have suggested that if the conclusions which they have reached regarding the matters referred to their consideration commend themselves to the House, the House should, for the removal of doubt, come to a Resolution expressing their agreement with those conclusions. It is, of course, the case that a Resolution of this House on this matter is not actually binding upon the courts, but at the same time the Committee express the view, with which I entirely concur, that if this House passes such a Resolution, that Resolution will be treated with respect by the courts in considering any case that may come before them. I do not think I need say anything more. I suggest to the House that at we should follow the recommendations of the Committee and pass this Resolution, and then I hope we may put this matter out of our minds and that we shall not have to take it up again for a very long time.

4.7 p.m.

Mr. Wedgwood Benn: I should like at the outset, if I may, not only to express my pleasure at seeing the Prime Minister back, but, inasmuch as we are discussing this afternoon a House of Commons matter, to pay a tribute, as a Member of the House, to the conduct of the Prime

Minister, not as Prime Minister, but as Leader of the House. Amidst all that he has to do, that he should find time to sit here, as Leader, for hours and hours deserves, I think, a tribute from every one of us.
There are two observations that I should like to make on this report before I come to the substance of it, and the first is this: this is a House of Commons Report. In this matter there are no Ministers, but only Members of Parliament; there are no front benches, no back benches; there is no Government, there is no Opposition. It is a House of Commons Report; as such it was unanimously passed by the Committee, and as such I have no doubt that it will be unanimously approved by this House. That is the first point—the House of Commons unanimous in the assertion of its own freedom. The second point is this: The Government have brought forward a Motion to approve this report at a time when this country is at war, and what I have to say will be rather addressed to showing that a free Parliament can make its contribution, and a great contribution, to securing victory. As the Prime Minister said in his summary, there are three findings in this report. The first is that that wide freedom which was conferred by the Bill of Rights is intact to-day, and the Committee went on to say, in the passage which the Prime Minister quoted, that definition might only serve to confine it, and, therefore, it was not defined. The second point that the Committee made was that this so-called privilege of Members of Parliament is in reality not a privilege personal to ourselves but a privilege enjoyed by us on behalf of our constituents, and the freedom of the House of Commons is really the freedom of the people. The third point, as the Prime Minister mentioned, is that the safeguards are, first, the disciplinary powers of this House secondly, the good sense and honour of individual Members.
This is a very wide subject and might introduce a very wide and, certainly to the House of Commons, a very interesting Debate, but I propose, as I say, to consider the application of these principles to the work that we can do in pursuing the purpose which is in the hearts of all of us, namely, winning the war. Some people say that in war time Parliament should be sandbagged, either in the more


active sense of the words or in the more passive; that the House should be hidden and protected like an ancient monument. But we contend that all the secrecy and speed and craft that lie at the hand of the autocrat are not as powerful a weapon as the sinewy strength which comes from the debates of a free people. Some people say that when we speak of fighting the war for freedom, we use words of hypocrisy, and they point to the Defence Regulations for an example, but the assertions in this report show that whatever the Regulations may be, there exists here an overriding authority. If we are to have a Himmler, he has got to sit there and be subject to questions, he has got to be subject to what is far more important, namely, supplementary questions, and he has got to meet Members of the House of Commons; and he cannot—and this is most important—be insulated by bureaucrats. A man who has made a mistake cannot take cover behind a Minister for the Minister must come in contact with people who will point out the mistake. These are very important points. The German Chancellor holds that progress is exclusively the work of personal genius, and he considers that Parliament is "the gravest symptom of human decline." That is in "Mein Kampf." Mr. Fox said that liberty is power, predominant and invincible, that it derides all other sources of strength. Mr. Fox will prove Mr. Hitler to be wrong. This freedom from interference, whether by the Official Secrets Acts or by the Regulations, which are wider, is particularly important in time of war, because nearly everything which is discussed at such a time touches the matter of national security.
There are three aspects of the war effort to which I wish to refer and in regard to which this freedom of the House ought to be usefully employed. First, there is the appeal to the world, secondly, there is the equipment of the troops, and, thirdly, there is the morale of the people. We appeal in this war to world opinion, to the Commonwealth, to the neutrals, and to the great United States of America. In the report it will be observed that, as evidence for their findings, the Committee quote judgments delivered in Ontario and in New South Wales, but also in the Supreme Court of Massachusetts and in the Supreme Federal Court of America. That is interesting, and it is important,

because it means that just as we frame our practice by their decisions, so what we do here with our Parliament affects the freedom of theirs. They derive their Parliaments from us. A free Parliament is the link that binds us to them. In the never stale words of Burke:
Slavery they can have anywhere; freedom they can have from none but yon.
The maintenance of a free Parliament is indeed one of the chief of our war aims.
Next as to propaganda. Propaganda is of no value unless it is trusted. It is not what is said that matters; it is what is believed. "Mein Kampf" defines propaganda as
a systematically one-sided attitude towards every problem that has to be dealt with.
In a free Parliament statements are subject to cross-examination. When a gentleman from Zeesen asks: "Where is the ' Ark Royal'?" he thinks he is suggesting a rhetorical question, but he is really drafting a parliamentary question. We make our case in open court, for all the world to attend.
As to equipment, Parliamentary criticism, constructive criticism, as it always has been since the beginning of September, can make a great contribution. It has made a great contribution. If the First Lord of the Admiralty were here he would not deny that Parliamentary Debates have done something towards improving the national armed strength. That we can have these Debates free from the interference of the Official Secrets Acts is of great value. And in the wider matters of campaigns Parliament can perform a useful service. The war goes well and no one wishes to criticise its conduct; but there have been occasions in the past where criticisms and inquiry have been vital. Mr. Roebuck's inquiry brought down Lord Aberdeen's Government. There were the inquiries into the Mesopotamia campaign, the Dardanelles campaign, and the shell shortage, which touched directly on matters covered by the Official Secrets Acts. No one would say that those actions did not help to secure victory.
Thirdly, there is the question of the maintenance of the national morale, both at home and in the field. At the beginning of the war the Government made great provisions against attack, and rightly so. People willingly suffered


acutely in regard to transport, food, evacuation and black-outs. But the attack did not come. It may be that it did not come because the preparations were so complete. But we must not forget, too, that the Nazi does not hit a man his own size. There was undoubtedly much discontent, grave discontent. That discontent was dealt with in Debates in this House, and those Debates relating to the restrictions did very much to steady the home morale. The Germans have a different method, the Fuhrer sends for the Gauleiter. They go to the local leaders and they go to no one. The Gauleiter return terrified to the Fuhrer and are afraid to give information even if they had it, which they have not. Our system wears better. A Debate in a free Parliament clears the air more effectively than a bomb in a beer cellar.
Then there is the morale of the men in the field. The soldier requires good weapons, good billets, good food, good clothes. All these are important, but the one thing above all is the letter from home. He wants to know that his wife and children are well, that there is money in the home, that there is food in the house, that the rent is paid. The Nazis did not dare to tell their men in the Siegfried Line that they were at war. The prisoners we have taken say they thought they were on manoeuvres. In "Mein Kampf" Hitler speaks of letters from home as poison that women send out, which costs hundreds of thousands of lives. Undoubtedly the British soldier is well cared for but he has always this guarantee, that if there is something going wrong at home, his wife or his children have the means of approach to Parliament by which the hardship can be ventilated and remedied. I hope we shall never hear again what we began to hear a short time ago, namely, a Minister trying to browbeat a Member who was performing this useful national service.
There is, however, a much wider issue. Ministers deal with material things, guns, ships, flying machines, but these are nothing without the national resolve, and it is in this House that the national resolve is formed. We believe that the war is right. We must justify our belief. We must face the critics, the waverers, the heretics. Our creed must be subject to question. A free House freely debating

the national purpose, who can doubt how much stronger it is than a Fuhrer isolated, terrified, hesitating? This House is a very old-fashioned place. The forms, the words, the garb that is worn, the things that we see daily, are much as they were 250 years ago. We have not here the glitter of the Kroll Theatre where Mr. Speaker Goering is to be seen perched floodlit on a sort of catafalque. I suppose that gaudy charm is a sort of hangover from the days when Krolls was a beer garden. There is great comfort in the archaism of this House. Every object reminds us that this is not the first time that this free House has played its part in the fight for freedom. Our Journals tell the story. Anyone who has read the speech of Sir Christopher Hatton on the attack of Spain, will know that the public of that day were far more frightened of the Armada than we are of the magnetic mine. Sergeant Snagge, our Speaker, led the House to the other place and in his speech moved the Queen to "denounce war against the Spanish King "and the Queen thanked God that she had so good a House of Commons.
It was at the Table now in the Library that the Ministers announced the victories of Blenheim. It was from that Table that the Ministers moved the thanks of Parliament to the Duke of Marlborough. Mr. Harley was the Speaker then, but it is not recorded in the Journals that he was Speaker, because for two days in 1702, I am sorry to say, the Clerks omitted to make up the Journals. It must have been due to the excitement of the accession of a new Queen. This Mace has played its part. The Duke of Wellington asked for permission to come here to return thanks. Just as the Whips may come to the Bar to give a message, so Lord Castlereagh announced that the Duke of Wellington had come to the Bar. A chair was brouhgt inside the Bar, and the Duke sat covered. This Mace was taken by the Serjeant-at-Arms and set on his right hand, and the Duke thanked the House of Commons for the help they had given him. Mr. Abbott, your predecessor, made a pleasant little speech in reply. These victories were won by great warriors, but Parliament played its part in them, as it plays its part to-day.
On 3rd September last, the First Lord of the Treasury, whom we call the Prime Minister in these recent times, came to


the House and, in a very moving speech, told us that we were at war. The House was very full and very calm. Nobody said "Sieg Heil." As a matter of fact you, Mr. Speaker, rose and said,
The Clerk will now proceed to read the Orders of the Day.
What comfort in those words. They showed Parliament, ancient, free and resolute. You will remember that Friday, Sir, when you took your procession, near to midnight, to the other place. The constables cried, "Make way for Mr. Speaker. Make way for the Mace," but there was no one to make way. The Central Lobby was empty—dark as a cavern. There was nothing but the lamps on the pavement, masked lamps, giving a glitter to your shoe buckles, like little flames of freedom, wisely restrained, to guide our feet. You went to take the King's Pleasure on Acts which had been agreed upon by both Houses. Provision had been made by this House for our fighting men, whose bodies stand to-day between us and slavery. Those Acts were meant to enable them to dispose of this present trouble as Drake disposed of Philip, as Churchill disposed of Louis, and as the Duke disposed of Bonaparte— who, also, was a Corporal—and the Clerks were required to pass the same in the usual form and words.

4.27 p.m.

Mr. Kingsley Griffith: I should like to associate myself most warmly with the words of the right hon. Member for Gorton (Mr. Benn) in expressing our gratitude to the Prime Minister for the way in which he has made himself not only the chief Minister of State but also the chief of us, as private Members, in any matter concerning our rights. I think this Debate will be well worth while. It is a good thing that we have not passed it over in a formal way, because it has given us the pleasure of hearing the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken so brilliantly in vindication of the liberties of Parliament. I think the observations have been generally welcomed from all quarters of the House.
As a member of the Committee I am reminded that we were appointed to inquire into the applicability of the Official Secrets Acts to Members of Parliament, and I do not desire that this subject

should be passed over without a few words as to the conclusions at which we, after many months, arrived as to the applicability of those Acts to our circumstances and privileges. We were rather unfortunate in our dates. The first report of the Committee was published when the crisis of 1938 pressed upon us and interest in our proceedings was promptly dropped. When we produced our second report there was yet another September and another crisis. There is, however, in our labours something of enduring value which, if it may be difficult to discuss it at this time, may be of great service for the instruction of later times.
Before I went into the Committee I was considerably exercised in my mind as to what were my rights or my duties with regard to the acquisition of information and the publicity of information which might be acquired by me in the course of my occupation as a Member of Parliament, and whether they were different from those of any other man. There are one or two points which I think the House might well remember. What has come to be known as the Sandys case was very largely concerned with the applicability of Section 6 of the Official Secrets Act, which deals with the right to obtain from any Member of Parliament the source of any information he might publish. That particular point has become to a considerable extent academic now, because a Bill has already passed the House of Lords and received an uncontested Second Reading in this House altering Section 6 to such an extent that I think it very doubtful whether any controversial question with regard to Members of Parliament is likely to arise again. But it is still not equally clear that Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act, which deals with the reception or solicitation of secret information from servants of the State, might not possibly come in question. I have been a little alarmed when I have seen comments in the Press which seem to indicate that Members of Parliament are now completely free in these matters, and that there is nothing to hamper their actions in any respect.
I recommend hon. Members who want to know what their rights and privileges are with respect to solicitation and publishing secret information to read paragraphs 16 and 17 of the report of the Select Committee. If they want to know


whether in regard to the solicitation of information which has been entrusted to servants of the State in confidence they have any special privileges, or even if they have the right willingly to receive such information from servants of the State without authorisation, the answer of the report is quite plainly in the negative. They have no such right whatever, and it is well that this should be known. I think it would be a dangerous thing if the opinion got abroad that by the mere fact of election to Parliament one could go to any servant of the State with regard to confidential information and say, "Tell me; I am an M.P., it is all right." That is without any foundation as I see it, and as I think the report shows, and I think it would be highly dangerous to the State.
I am not suggesting that one cannot depend on the loyalty of Members of Parliament. Of course, one can; but with regard to any body of 600 Members discretion cannot aways be equal in every unit, and if there is imposed upon servants of the Crown a duty to conceal information which is given to them in trust, such a trust is not likely to be broken, and is not to be broken merely because a person with whom they are communicating happens to be elected a Member of this House. There is, of course, a safeguard. One has to recognise that there may be a case, one out of a thousand, in which there is some concealed scandal, and in which publicity alone appears to be the only possible cure for something which may endanger the State itself. On that point I want to emphasise that there is a protection, but it is a protection which does not depend on privilege at all; it depends on the wording of the Act itself which says:
There shall be no crime when the person to whom the communication is made is one to whom it is their duty in the interest of the State to communicate.
I want to emphasise that although this is a safeguard which would apply to any Member of Parliament, it is a safeguard which would apply no less to the editor of a newspaper who has received information which he thinks it is necessary in the interest of the State to be communicated to the public, or indeed, to any other member of the public. It is also a defence which would have to be made out with exceeding difficulty, because prima facie, if anybody has received information under a pledge of secrecy, that

pledge cannot be lightly broken. Those who claim immunity have the burden thrown upon them to show that the overriding weight in the interest of the State is that it may be an excuse for the breaking of the ordinary rule. But that is not a matter of privilege: it is a matter of the safety of the State in general. In other matters the committee has reasserted rights which are ancient and which have not been seriously challenged. The right of Members of Parliament on the Floor of this House to speak freely without fear of challenge is reasserted, and even perhaps extended by pointing out that questions, and matters preparatory to the asking of questions, may come under the same rule. I am glad that the ancient privileges of Parliament should be in this way maintained, but I do not wish to conceal from the House that when I am approaching privilege I approach it in a spirit of criticism. I am not fond of privilege. I find that in a popular dictionary it is defined as
the advantage of an individual; a right enjoyed only by a few; freedom from burdens borne by others.
In that sense privilege is something which I have always viewed with alarm. Everyone knows of the privileges of an elected body, but those privileges can never be the privileges of Members of Parliament as individuals. As the right hon. Gentleman has already said, they are privileges which are for the benefit of our constituents and the minimum without which we cannot perform our duties. If we claim our privileges in these terms we shall always have the support of public opinion. If we push our privileges beyond that point to something which we claim as a matter of personal right, then I think public opinion would cease to support us and might claim, in the words of Walt Whitman, to be delivered from the audacity of elected persons.

4.39 p.m.

Major Sir George Davies: The original episode which gave rise to the report we are considering this afternoon caused a certain amount of distaste and criticism in a good many quarters. Through the passage of time the matter has been relegated to its proper perspective, but it has not been without its advantages. The right hon. Member for Gorton (Mr. Benn)


spoke with great eloquence on the question and I should like to congratulate him on his speech. He dealt with the subject from a very wide point of view, as a House of Commons matter, upholding its rights and privileges and responsibilities. I should like to say a word in regard to individual Members of Parliament. We have heard a great deal about the privileges of Members of Parliament, and the privileges of a freely elected assembly, but not perhaps so much about the responsibilities attaching thereto; and it seems to me that the two are inseparable. If we claim, and rightly claim, certain privileges which are not enjoyed by others it must inevitably bring certain responsibilities which are not borne by others, otherwise the whole edifice of freedom which we now enjoy will break down. These privileges are not enshrined in any tome; they have been built up by precedent and experience and have been handed down by generations of our predecessors. They are precious to us and we should protect them so that we may hand them on unimpaired to those who follow us.
But if the privileges must be kept unimpaired the responsibilities must be discharged with a due sense of their importance. It is easy to lay a dividing line and say, it is quite clear that behind this you have certain privileges and to say that beyond this you would be in error. It is rather like the two lines of the last Great War, and I suppose of the present war. Behind the Maginot Line and the Siegfried Line it is possible to say that you may move with comparative safety, but as soon as you step over and get into No-Man's land you have to walk very delicately and to exercise what the Prime Minister referred to in his opening remarks, the common sense of individual Members of Parliament. If we exercise our privileges and carry out our responsibilities with ordinary common sense I do not think these difficulties will arise in the future. But that is not an answer which gives a solution to a difficult problem. No doubt hon. Members are aware of the story of the child who was engaged in pulling about a toy horse, with inadequately lubricated wheels, and the despair of the mother at the excruciating noises coming there from. She could bear them no longer and protested. The inquiring mind of childhood

said, "This is a toy horse, but you say it is a real noise. Where does the toy horse end and the real noise begin? And can a real horse make a toy noise?" The same thing applies to the interpretation of our responsibilities in the exercise of our privileges. Those responsibilities are not confined merely to the asking of questions and supplementary questions; they apply equally to the Minister who is replying to them. That is to say, if in general the possession of privileges and the sense of responsibility is ruled by an application of ordinary common sense, I think we shall not have the difficulties which some people foresaw when the original episode occurred.

Question, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in their conclusions," put, and agreed to.

AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT ACT, 1939.

4.44 p.m.

The Minister of Agriculture (Colonel Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith): I beg to move,
That the Supplementary Scheme under the Agricultural Development Act, 1939, varying the estimated average price for homegrown barley provided for in the Barley Scheme, 1939, and making certain consequential amendments, a copy of which was presented to this House on the 15th day of November, be approved.
There is no point of principle involved in this scheme. It is one merely designed to meet the changed circumstances which have come over the barley world owing to the outbreak of war. It is also designed to try and save to the Government and to the users of barley and importers of beer unnecessary trouble and expense. The House will remember that in August last it approved a barley scheme arising out of the Agricultural Development Act. The main feature of that scheme was that brewers and importers of beer should pay into a fund certain levies which are laid down in the scheme, so that the producers of barley would be assured that they would receive an average price of 10s. per cwt. The amount of these levies was determined by the difference between the average price of barley in England and Wales and the 10s. per cwt. at which we aimed. That was to be ascertained during the six months 1st August, 1939, to January, 1940.
The scheme provided also that, in order that these levies should flow evenly, the


Ministers concerned should make an estimate of the average selling price of barley. That estimate was made in August—an estimate of 8s. 7d. per cwt. On that estimate the provisional collection of the levies has proceeded. 'It is pretty clear that, owing to present conditions, the average price of barley will, in fact exceed the figure of 10s. per cwt., above which there is no levy payable. To date actually the average price is at about 11s. 8d. per cwt., and there is no sign of that price dropping. This scheme, therefore, has been made to enable the Ministers to vary their estimate of the average price and bring it to the reality, and also to enable us to pay back those levies which have already been collected to the brewers and to the importers. The principal scheme also provided that applications for barley subsidy were to be made by growers at a date not later than 30th September this year. Owing to the outbreak of the war no forms of application have gone out and, unless there is a real fall in the price, it will be unnecessary to send those applications out, but the supplementary scheme, in order to be on the safe side, makes provision against a fall in prices by allowing an extension of the closing date for the receipt of applications. In other words, if a fall did come about, in order to give full expression to the scheme, forms could be sent out early next year if necessary. I hope the House will approve the scheme.

4.48 p.m.

Mr. T. Williams: We have no objection to this very modest scheme, but perhaps it would not be out of place to draw the attention of the very large number of Members in the House to one of the peculiar factors which ever follow the case of agricultural products and prices. It is only about six or seven months since we were dealing with the price of barley because of the very bad season for barley growers. They were receiving a very small price because their output had been large, they had knocked the bottom out of their own prices and Parliamentary action had to be taken and the Treasury had to step in to safeguard them. Parliament in its wisdom provided a price below which barley should not fall, and the scheme to which, the right hon. Gentleman has referred gave an element of security to the producer. But we went further. We actually provided barley

growers with a special subsidy for the 1938 crop and in 1939, in order to relieve the barley growers' anxiety, it was intimated that, if the price fell below a certain point, the Treasury were willing to step in to fill the breach. The war has been proceeding for only 10 or 11 weeks and we find that what might have been, according to the Minister's calculations, an economic price for barley has been exceeded by about 20 per cent. already. Hence the need for this scheme to replace such contributions as have already been advanced and to revoke the original scheme made in August.
When the House is called upon to deal with agricultural commodities, when we are providing guaranteed prices, when the Treasury is called upon to pay out millions for the present or last year's crop, it ought not to be a case of one party, the Treasury, putting all the time and the other party taking all the time, as appears to be the case. The first opportunity that presents itself to enforce considerably higher prices is taken advantage of. I suppose if the right hon. Gentleman is confronted with this problem six months ahead and if, as I hope with all my heart, there is an end to hostilities, the price of barley naturally will tend to fall and, once it falls below the estimated price of 8s. 7d., the Treasury again will have to step in to fill the breach—I repeat the word "breach." I am glad the farmer is receiving an economic price for his commodity. I want him always to receive that. Indeed I should prefer to guarantee him what was a recognised economic price, based upon careful calculations, so that year by year fluctuating prices would be flattened out and he would always know where he is, but while we continue with this, taking the chance when it arises and getting the Treasury to supply the means when the opportunity is not there, is really not playing the game. However, this revocation scheme is very necessary, but I hope that the right hon. Gentleman, at meetings of the National Farmers' Union, will whisper a word of wisdom in their ear not to upset Parliament by taking advantage of every possible opportunity that presents itself, or Parliament may at some time, sooner or later, go back upon their promises, which would not be healthy either for the farmers or for agriculture, or even for the nation.

4.52 p.m.

Mr. John Morgan: This looks an innocent Measure, but I am glad that my hon. Friend has drawn attention to the almost unholy haste with which the brewers are trying to get back their levies. After all, the original scheme, I gather, was only for 12 months on an experimental basis. If so, could not the brewers have left the whole scheme for the 12 months? I take it that there may be anything up to £100,000 already in the "kitty." That cannot mean much to the brewers, and it would have remained a very good insurance to meet the fear that farmers have that the moment this business is over they will once again he in the cart. I feel that the Minister is placing facilities—I do not know under what pressure—before the brewing industry which ought not to be so readily given them. The money would not be in the kitty had they not been buying their barley at a good price. When the sales cross the border-line Parliament is called upon to enable a refund to be made. I hope that once again the brewers and the farmers between them will realise that the brewing industry is capable of paying a proper price for barley. It is now living mainly upon the production of the home crop, and it is buying it at a satisfactory price to the farmer without an undue increase in the price of beer. Surely that lesson ought not to be lost on the farming industry and the country at this time.
I should like to ask whether this means that actually the hope of a barley scheme is abandoned. Having refunded these amounts, and presuming that the war should go over the experimental period, does that automatically mean that once again a fight would have to be made for the farmers and once again the barley price would have to be put upon some kind of insured basis? How does the acceptance of this Measure affect that? Also are the brewers under any kind of statutory obligation at this moment to buy only home-grown barley or are they free to buy imported if they can get release of that imported from the Food Controller? Farmers to-day are seeking every kind of guarantee for their future. Their future is not very well assured. Surely the brewers could give the farmers a guarantee that they would hold the price position for 12 months after the termination of the war, because we are going to

see a very real extension of barley acreage in the spring and they can buy the home crop barley and at the same time not face a worsened economic position for themselves.

4.57 p.m.

Sir Richard Wells: I am sure the hon. Member did not intend to leave a wrong impression, but I should like to say on behalf of the brewers that they did not oppose the scheme and they gave a great deal of assistance to the Minister. They did not ask for this levy to be removed. It has, obviously, been removed because the price of barley has gone above the estimate. If there is one section of the community who would like to see the farmers get a fair average price, and a regular price, it is the brewing industry.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Supplementary Scheme under the Agricultural Development Act, 1939, varying the estimated average price for homegrown barley provided for in the Barley Scheme, 1939, and making certain consequential amendments, a copy of which was presented to this House on the 1.5th day of November, be approved.

SCOTTISH EDUCATION AND EVACUATION.

Motion made and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Captain Dugdale.]

4.58.p.m.

Mr. Westwood: I desire to take this opportunity to raise certain problems affecting Scotland. I propose to deal with some aspects of our educational, evacuation and hospital problems all arising out of war conditions, problems which have caused much discussion, questioning and heart-burning amongst large sections of our population. In that most vital of our social services, education, some of us have looked forward to 1939 as the beginning of another forward march in educational progress. I am sure that this hope would have been realised, in many respects, but for the war. The raising of the school age, hemmed around though it was with all kinds of irritating limitations and shortcomings, would have taken us another step on the slow march towards those educational ideals which many of us have visualised for the last 25 years. The new day-school regulations would have


brought us nearer to the time when our educational system would be adapted to the capabilities of the child, instead of compelling the children to fit into one or two cast-iron moulds. Now, almost at its beginning, the war numbers among its casualties education which is one of the most important of our social services.
An outstanding and disturbing feature associated with our education, or rather lack of education, at the present time is the fact that, after 12 weeks of war, primary schools in the areas designated as vulnerable are still closed. There is no need to stress the tremendous loss which the nation will suffer if the children today are denied opportunities for receiving education. That is recognised, I think, by everyone. The reoccupation by children of our city streets means immediate and real danger to them from the traffic, reduced though it is. But there are also to be considered such factors as the lack of discipline, the loss of opportunities to utilise the school medical services, and the denial of even that elementary physical training which our schools provide. There is also the loss of educational facilities particularly for those children between the ages of 11 and 14. All this must have disastrous results, both for the individual child and for the nation.
We are now getting ahead with air-raid precautions work and there seems to be no justifiable reason against the opening of our schools, possibly not on pre-war lines but at least in a modified way. It is a tragedy that so many children who were evacuated to areas which were considered comparatively safe, should have returned and that large numbers of them should be running wild in our streets without guidance or discipline, without educational and physical instruction. We have to face the fact, however, that large numbers of them have returned for a variety of reasons. One has only to go round on Civil Defence work to be convinced that something must be done and done speedily, to arrest the damage which is being caused in this way to the child life of the nation. I earnestly suggest that further and urgent consideration should be given to this problem.
Just as there are varying degrees of vulnerability and danger as between one district and another so, within the districts themselves, there are varying degrees of danger. It might not be advis-

able to open the schools in certain parts of our evacuation areas such as those which are near docks, shipyards, steelworks and the like, yet modern transport, particularly in large cities like Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee, is such that there should be no difficulty in bringing children from one part of a city to another for the purposes of schooling. This, coupled with a policy of providing the maximum shelter accommodation at or near the schools, ought to make it possible, in some cases at any rate, to open the schools.
This could be done in various ways. In some cases it would be possible to have one opening for the day. But in many cases school accommodation has been reduced because of the buildings being used as first-aid posts. I suggest incidentally that this has been overdone. In many cases in providing for a danger which was thought to be imminent at the beginning of the war, we have been sacrificing the best interests of the children. The nation is wealthy enough to provide, in a crisis like this, the necessary accommodation for air-raid precaution purposes. It is true that at the beginning there had to be speedy requisitions owing to the urgency of the work, but that should have been a temporary phase, and it is now time that we were making the necessary permanent arrangements for our air-raid precautions work. But, as I say, in many cases the school accommodation has been reduced owing to the use of school buildings for first-aid posts and for the billeting of military forces or owing to the degree of vulnerability. There is an alternative, however, to the one-shift system which I have already suggested. That would be to have a two-shift system with a school week of six days, which would provide at least three days' schooling for all children.
This would be a tremendous advantage. It is not an ideal arrangement, but I wish to deal with the problem in a practical spirit, and while it is not ideal, three days schooling would be infinitely better than the present disastrous policy of having no schooling for large numbers of our child population. It would minimise the time occupied by the children in travelling between home and school and would enable all to go home before the hours of darkness in the winter. It


would enable that discipline, the slackening of which is so noticeable to the observer, to be restored, and it would prevent our having a generation of our children growing up illiterate and untrained for the work of life which must be faced when the war has been brought to a successful termination. Incidentally, either of those suggestions would enable shelter accommodation of Home Office standards to be provided in a short time and at the minimum cost. I earnestly suggest that further consideration be given to this one of the many serious problems arising out of immediate war conditions.
Everyone, I am sure, wants to see this problem tackled at once and with that end in view I would suggest an immediate conference between representatives of the Scottish Education Department, representatives of the Home Office who are directly responsible for air raid precautions work in the districts, representatives of the education authorities immediately affected and the regional and district commissioners of the areas affected. These conferences, I submit, should be held at once in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee. I hope that proposal will receive the favourable consideration of the Secretary of State for Scotland with a view to securing consultation among those who are on the spot and who understand the problem. Knowing some of them as I do, I am sure that while they would not be willing to open the schools in real danger areas, they are desperately anxious that the maximum number of schools should be opened and that the maximum provision for the education of the children should be made, together with the maximum provision of shelter based on Home Office standards.
As regards the evacuation scheme, I am almost afraid to refer to it as a social experiment, although I have heard those words used about it time and again. It certainly has been a social upheaval, and I think it has, in the main, worked fairly well. [An HON. MEMBER: "How well?"] That is a matter of opinion. I have seen both sides of the problem and I want to be fair in dealing with it. It is open to everyone in this House who has the opportunity of taking part in the Debate, to give his own views on the problem. Some of the difficulties and the cause of many of the complaints undoubtedly arose

from the hurried way in which evacuation was carried out. I suggest that it reflects the greatest credit on those responsible for the transport and billeting arrangements that so few difficulties were created in connection with that phase of the work. The weakness in the scheme was the failure to assemble the children at the schools immediately, when the crisis became apparent, and to make use of the time between then and the actual evacuation to find out and as far as possible remedy the various difficulties before sending the children to the receiving areas. I have a feeling that no Civil Defence authority in Scotland was responsible for that panicky action which helped to cause much of the irritation, annoyance and complaint, which arose out of the first phase of evacuation.
Evacuation has disclosed serious defects in our health services, and many who previously grumbled at the cost of those services, particularly the school health services, are now, I believe, converts to the need for improved health and clinical services for our school population. This is one of the problems which cannot wait until the war is over. It ought to be tackled now with a view to remedying the defects which have been shown. Mistakes have been made and difficulties have emerged. We have heard a great deal about the misfits and the irritations, but I suggest that little has been said about the wonderful tolerance and the great helpfulness of those who provided homes and so much human kindness in many instances, for the children who were moved from the areas designated as vulnerable. Now is the time to set about adjusting the misfits and to see that the burden is equitably borne by the community so that it will not be borne by some all the time, while others, sometimes their next-door neighbours, bear none of it at any time.
The further development, in the receiving areas of the community feeding so successfully experimented with in areas like Tillicoultry and Alloa would be of real value in meeting the problems arising from evacuation, while the welfare work which has been done in places like Kilsyth, could usefully be initiated in many other receiving areas. The development of this kind of work should be encouraged by the Secretary of State and


financial provision made to further it. As I say, mistakes have been made. It is not always criminal to make mistakes, particularly in connection with a great scheme which has never been tried out before. But it is criminal, I suggest, to repeat mistakes or to fail to learn the lesson of previous mistakes. It is the duty of the central authority, the evacuation authorities and the receiving authorities, not to repeat the mistakes already made but to learn from them and to remedy them as speedily as possible. Another point to which I would draw the attention of the Secretary of State relates to our hospital services. It would be useful if before the close of the Debate the right hon. Gentleman would say a few words upon the hospital arrangements. It is only too well known that the number of hospital beds in Scotland was by no means excessive, even for peace-time purposes. I should like to be assured, as I am sure hon. Members in all parts of the House would, that substantial progress is being made with the provision of the extra beds that will be necessary if air raids occur on an extensive scale.
There is another problem that faces us as a result of the evacuation of hospital patients. It may have been the right thing to do, because almost everybody was under the impression that air raids would start immediately war was declared, but at the present time, there are thousands of vacant beds in the hospitals in Scotland. I would argue that the greater number of these beds should be made available to people who require them at the present time. Another problem that has been created as a result of the evacuation of patients from the hospitals is that a very large personnel who have offered their services as auxiliary nurses cannot be trained, owing to the fact that the patients have been sent from the hospitals to their homes, where they are not receiving proper attention, because people cannot give the necessary attention in the homes, and where, indeed, in many cases, there is not sufficient accommodation for the sick persons. Therefore, I trust that before the Debate ends we shall receive some assurance from the Secretary of State that many of those beds will be made available to the sick and needy who require them now. Those are the three matters to which I want particularly to draw

attention. As far as our great social services are concerned, we cannot possibly continue to expand some of them on the lines on which they were being expanded before the war began, but they must not be destroyed, and we must make our plans now for their development when the war ends.

5.19 p.m

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Colville): I think it would be convenient to the House if I intervened in the Debate at this early stage, and left my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to wind up the Debate. I think I shall be able to give a number of facts which will be useful to hon. Members in considering the subjects under discussion this evening. The hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk (Mr. Westwood) introduced subjects which are very much in the minds of all Scotsmen at this time. I will deal first with the question which he raised in relation to education. Hon. Members know that, up to the outbreak of war, we were engaged in carrying through a big programme of educational reform. We were bringing our schools more up to date, improving buildings and equipment, preparing for the higher leaving age, adjusting the teaching more closely to the needs of modern life, and generally trying to broaden out the educational organisation of the country. This is the kind of work which really counts in the long run for individual happiness. That work has been interrupted by the war. It is not one of the least of our grievances against those who are now our enemies that they have caused us to interrupt this great movement in Scotland, which hon. Members of all parties desired to see brought to a successful conclusion. That movement has been interrupted by the war, and big problems of readjustment have been presented to us.
The first overriding consideration was the safety of the children. As the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk said, most people believed that serious air raids might occur almost immediately after the beginning of the war, and steps were taken in many parts of the country with that consideration in mind. All schools were closed in the dangerous, neutral and reception areas. Plans for the evacuation of the children from the dangerous areas and their reception elsewhere had been made in advance, and


about 100,000 children in Scotland were transferred under this plan. That was a much smaller number than was anticipated, and the fact that so many children stayed in the vulnerable areas created new difficulties and led to new adjustments of the original plan. I will speak on evacuation generally later on, but from the educational point of view one of the difficulties we had to meet was that a much smaller number of children went out than was expected, and therefore, in the sending areas, we had large numbers of children remaining with whom we had to deal. I think I can best sum up subsequent moves in regard to education in Scotland by giving a time-table of events. On 7th September, in a Departmental Circular, it was urged that all schools in the reception areas should be reopened as soon as possible. On nth September, schools in neutral areas were authorised to reopen, subject to adequate air-raid protection being available. On 23rd September, the secondary departments of senior secondary schools in the sending areas were allowed to reopen subject to three conditions, that the school was not in a specially vulnerable neighbourhood, that adequate air-raid protection was made, and that attendance should be voluntary, that is to say, that the parents should have the option of saying whether they wished the children to go to school.

Mr. Buchanan: It was not made compulsory on the education authorities to reopen the schools?

Mr. Colville: No, Sir. It was put to them that they might do so. Subject to the conditions which I have mentioned, the schools could reopen.

Mr. Neil Maclean: Are we to understand that the education authorities had power, if they cared, to reopen the schools? Does that power still exist?

Mr. Colville: On 23rd September, the secondary departments of senior secondary schools—I was not speaking of primary schools—in the sending areas were allowed to reopen, subject to the conditions I have mentioned. On that date also, schools in the sending areas were authorised to reopen for medical inspection and treatment. The next date I will mention is 16th October. On that date, the secondary departments of

junior secondary schools were permitted to reopen on the same conditions as those which I have mentioned. On 1st November, we decided to permit primary schools in the sending areas to reopen on similar conditions to those for other schools. Hon. Members will see the stages by which the reopening of schools in the sending areas has been authorised. The degree to which reopening has taken place is a matter on which I shall speak later. I hope to see an acceleration of the programme.

Mr. Buchanan: That covers practically all the schools.

Mr. Colville: It covers them all. In the reception areas, the same sequence was followed. All available schools in the reception areas are now open, and arrangements have been made for the education of the children whose schools have been requisitioned for other purposes. I will mention later the numbers that have been requisitioned; there are not very many in the reception areas, but quite a number in the sending areas. In nine of the 12 neutral areas, all the available schools have now been wholly or partly reopened; in the other three neutral areas—Dunbarton, Fife, and West Lothian—there are still 19 schools that have not yet been reopened. In this figure of 19, there are included several schools that are being wholly or partly used for defence purposes. I may say that I am hoping that in a week's time the figure of 19 will be considerably reduced. The problem in the reception areas and neutral areas is really solved. but in the evacuation areas it is a different matter. In the evacuation areas, many of the secondary schools have now been open for several weeks, and work is going on, in the way of air-raid protection, to enable other schools, including the primary schools, to reopen where that is at all practicable. At the moment, I cannot give the total number of the schools not yet opened; the position is changing every day for the better. We have urged the authorities concerned to do all they can to take advantage of the permission that has been granted.
The hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk suggested that it would expedite matters if conferences were held in the three main areas between the local authorities, the Scottish Education Depart-


ment, and the Air-Raid Precautions authorities, that is to say, the Ministry of Home Security and the Commissioner's Office. Certainly, I will consider that suggestion, and act on it if I think it will help matters. The hon. Member will realise, of course, that contacts have been maintained between the Departments and these authorities for the purpose of getting the schools reopened, but if I felt that a conference would expedite matters, I should not hesitate to call one. About a fortnight ago, I attended a meeting in Glasgow, at which I met the representatives of the Glasgow education authority, after our recent announcement about primary schools, and discussed with them how best we could get the schools reopened.

Mr. Buchanan: Who will decide in Glasgow regarding the opening of schools? Is it the Secretary of State, the Home Office, the local authority, or a combination of all of them? I cannot get any responsibility fixed.

Mr. Colville: A school may open subject to certain conditions, among which are the conditions that it is not in a specially vulnerable spot, and that satisfactory air-raid protection is available. The local authority has to be in touch with the Scottish Education Department on the subject, and on the question of air-raid protection, expert advice is taken from the officials of the Ministry of Home Security as to the amount of protection that is required. That is to say, the A.R.P. authority have to be satisfied before a school can be reopened, and I am sure that that authority will do all it can in the light of the policy we wish to see carried out. In the event of air raiding in Scotland the schools would be closed for the time being, so that it is not intended to insist that they should have the degree of protection that would be necessary if it were intended to keep them open under all conditions. That should expedite the opening of the schools. I cannot give the number of schools open in those areas, but I can say that they are coming into use day by day. In the case of the larger authorities, such as Glasgow, the reopening of schools presents a considerable problem.

Mr. Buchanan: How many are open in Glasgow?

Mr. Colville: I cannot give a complete figure just now, but I might be able before the end of the Debate to give the number of secondary children in attendance.

Mr. Buchanan: What about the children of the working class?

Mr. Colville: In Glasgow there are a large number of school children, and I am doing all I can to get the authority to expedite the reopening.

Mr. Buchanan: They deny that they can open the schools. What I am annoyed at is this battledore and shuttlecock as between one authority and another, each one saying that it has no power. Who says that a school can be reopened? I do not want this shuffling off by one authority to another.

Mr. Colville: There is no shuffling off. I have explained that the schools can reopen subject to certain conditions, and the authority which has made a study of the problem of protection has to be satisfied.

Mr. N. Maclean: One of the conditions mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman is vulnerability. Is it not the case that Glasgow, particularly along the riverside, is considered an extra vulnerable spot, and there is no attempt to open the schools? Will the right hon. Gentleman give us a straight answer to the question whether in these places the schools can be opened if he gives authority for it, or will they remain closed in view of the conditions he has mentioned?

Mr. Colville: The hon. Member refers to "these places." There are certain schools in Glasgow which, in my view, and my view is shared by the Ministry of Home Security, it would not be safe to reopen. I cannot give a list of them just now, but there are certain schools which, on account of their position, which might be next to a factory of a particular description, or next to a shipyard, it might not be thought advisable to open. Therefore, I cannot generalise. I will do my best to get the largest number of schools open that is possible in the earliest possible time, but the location of a school in relation to some object which might attract attack must be taken into consideration. The hon. Member may hold a contrary view that any school can be


reopened. I believe that there is room for some latitude and that we ought not to be too stringent with some of the places which are considered to be rather near possible points of attack. There are places, however, where the line must be drawn if we are to have regard for the safety of the children.
The number of schools available has been affected by requisitioning for various purposes. Here we did not suffer very badly in Scotland. Friendly co-operation between local education authorities and the Civil Defence and military authorities was established, and provision was made so that the Scottish Education Department should come in where there was failure to agree. In the few cases in which an appeal was made to the Department and the Department took the matter up, the military authorities found it possible to arrange for the early release of the school premises. At present 77 schools are wholly occupied for military or Civil Defence purposes, and 222 are partly occupied and are available only in part for their original purpose. Many of the schools that were requisitioned are in the vulnerable areas from which it was thought a larger number of children would be transferred than in fact took advantage of the scheme at the start. Now, however, that schools are to be reopened in these areas, it will be necessary to review the position and we may have to ask for the return of some of the schools that have been given up for defence purposes. I am sure we shall meet with a reasonable response in that regard.
The problems of the education authorities in the receiving areas are different, although they are considerable. They had to provide for large numbers of children far beyond their normal requirements and they have risen to the task with resource and spirit. Teachers and children have had to be accommodated, and there have been all the troubles of billeting, of adapting buildings and of devising suitable time-tables, sometimes on a shift system. All the problems have not been solved, but they have been tackled and solved very successfully in most areas. The double-shift system has had to be widely adopted and other expedients brought into use; but means of education, in accordance with the Scottish Code, have been provided for the 56,000 school

children who came from the vulnerable areas and have remained in the receiving areas. There has been a drift back, but teachers and children who have remained are settling down, and according to the reports I am receiving the children are definitely gaining in health from their transfer from the city to the country-The more regular hours and the sound sleep and good food they are enjoying are beginning to tell in certain signs as regards their health and physique.
There are other possibilities of gain to set against the disturbance. The new interests that country life has brought to the city child may stand him and the nation in good stead in future years. In all this work of adaptation the teachers who accompanied the children have helped loyally, and the education authorities and teachers in the reception areas have done their work well. There is a great debt owing to the public generally in the reception areas. Help has come to them from various schemes for the recreation of the children. To give an example, a scheme for a travelling cinema was initiated by the Scottish Region of the Ministry of Information, and carried through with the help of the Scottish Film Council. It has been well received in the country areas, where films ranging from the most highly educational to Micky Mouse have been shown, not only to the evacuated children, but to the local children. This type of thing must be encouraged if we are to keep the children in the reception areas. Another recreational activity in reception areas is that carried through by the Scottish Football Association, who are raising funds for the organisation and equipment of football teams.
The new interest open to the town child now in the country has been apparent in several directions. One of them, which in war time is very valuable, is the movement to encourage the growing of vegetables in school gardens or on other available ground. This movement applies not only to schools in the country, but to schools in the towns where ground can be secured. The Scottish Education Department have urged this scheme on all education authorities. Several authorities anticipated the Department's recommendation. For example, in Ayrshire proposals came from the authority and a committee, representing the teaching


staffs of 60 schools, the education authority, the West of Scotland Agricultural College and the Department, are working on a detailed plan. In Moray and Nairn the planting of crops in all school gardens has begun, while leaflets prepared by the North of Scotland Agricultural College have been distributed to the schools. I hope this movement will spread rapidly, because it will not only help our national effort, but will do nothing but good for the health and education of the children.
A word about the feeding and clothing of the children. Most of the schools have reopened in the neutral areas and the needs of necessitous school children have been met on the normal lines. In the sending areas the normal arrangements will be resumed as the schools are reopened, which will be as quickly as possible. The three large sending authorities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee have provided meals or clothing for 11,000 children in the receiving areas. In the receiving areas communal feeding is being developed. The hon. Member who opened the Debate referred to the work being done at Tillicoultry and Alloa in that regard. Communal feeding is not always well received. In some districts there is a prejudice against it, and it will have to be demonstrated that it is successful and popular before it becomes more general, but I am anxious to see it develop. Milk under the milk in schools scheme has been available throughout, although the lack of the usual distributing centres, that is to say, the schools in session in the sending areas, has militated to some extent against the operation of the scheme for children who have not been evacuated. With the reopening of the schools I hope the supply of milk will shortly be resumed. It is important that children should have this facility as quickly as possible. In all the other areas where the scheme was in operation before the outbreak of war it has continued, although transport difficulties have had an effect.
Let me mention another aspect of our educational life in Scotland, namely, the work of the technical colleges and continuation classes. A recent statement about the position in England may have caused some misunderstanding. The fact is that all the central institutions under my jurisdiction in Scotland have been

reopened and are reviving day and evening classes. In the Glasgow and West of Scotland College of Domestic Science day classes only are in operation. The number of students in these central institutions are down. That is to be understood in view of the black-out, but I hope it will not be a permanent feature. The day students are only about 50 per cent. of the normal in these institutions, and evening students about 46 per cent. Since 16th September all education authorities have been free to resume continuation classes and adult education classes, subject to adequate air-raid protection, up to 10 p.m. Advantage has been taken of these arrangements to some extent, but not to the extent that I should like to see. The progress of reopening is rather slow. At the most recent date for which I have information the number of centres opened was no, as compared with 856 last year. I hope that progress will be made, because these continuation classes are an essential part of our educational system, and during this abnormal period they can play an important part in maintaining the essentials of our community life as it affects our young people. I am anxious to do whatever is possible to get a larger number of these continuation classes opened. The lack of schools and things of that kind do present difficulties, but we are pushing on with the matter. As in the day-school system, the abnormal conditions have led to some interesting experiments in continued education. Hon. Members will know of the Newbattle Abbey scheme. Although the house has been taken over for emergency purposes Newbattle Abbey tutors are working in conjunction with the Workers' Educational Association on a long-term scheme of rural pioneering work. The lectures they have organised so far have had a very encouraging start, and I hope there will be a successful development here.
To sum up, I think we can say that our educational system is adjusting itself to the abnormal conditions in which we are living. It has had to sacrifice a good deal, but there is no suggestion of wreckage. We hope even shortly to introduce a Wartime Senior Leaving Certificate to take the place of the certificate which, mainly because of the difficulty of securing a fair assessment of the merits of pupils living under widely different conditions, we have had to suspend. I


hope to be able to introduce this Wartime Senior Leaving Certificate, for which there is a good demand.

Mr. Woodburn: Can the Minister say whether it will be accepted by the Scottish Universities as equivalent to matriculation, as in the case of the former leaving certificate, and can we be sure that the students will not have to start studying some different subjects after they leave school?

Mr. Colville: Yes, that is understood and agreed to. I have not made my announcement about it yet, because I am in touch with several authorities on the subject, but the point which the hon. Member has raised is being looked after. Although I have not made the announcement yet, I will see that the point is attended to before I do so.

Mr. Maxton: How soon may we expect it?

Mr. Colville: Very soon. I am going into the question with certain authorities now, and as soon as I can I will make the announcement—I hope in about a week.
The new code has been preserved intact, and with a continuation of the good work of education authorities and teachers we shall lose very little, and probably gain a good deal, from the necessities of our time and the spirit of invention which they are producing. It will take a good deal to shake Scotland's grip on the essentials of her educational system. The big problem is to get as many children as possible back to school in the sending areas, and in that object I shall welcome the co-operation of hon. Members on all sides of the House. They can rest assured that I shall make no unnecessary restrictions, though I might join issue with certain hon. Members as regards the vulnerability of particular schools.

Mr. Dingle Foot: In cases where school buildings are held to be too vulnerable for use, what arrangements will be made to draft the children who attend there ordinarily to other schools, or to provide alternative accommodation?

Mr. Colville: It will be for the local authorities to put up the scheme. As the hon. Member who opened the Debate

said, it may involve the adoption of the two-shift system in order to get children accommodated elsewhere. The local authorities will have to do their best if a particular school is taken out to provide accommodation elsewhere.
Now I want to say a word upon evacuation, because that is an important part of the subject. The problem in Scotland was to provide for the transfer to safer areas of about 500,000 persons in what are known as the priority classes from the five Scottish sending areas—Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Clydebank and Rosyth. Others have been added since— North and South Queensferry and Inver-keithing. They were to be prepared to move in such a way that the evacuation could be carried out at 24 hours' notice, and we had to find room in the receiving areas for the persons transferred. This last task was by no means easy. It is well known that Scotland has not a superfluity of houses. If you look at a map of Scotland you might think it was easy to spread the population of these cities over the vast areas of Inverness-shire and Ross and Cromarty-—until it is remembered that in those parts there are only five houses to the square mile. Therefore, in many parts of Scotland the problem of finding housing accommodation for those transferred was very great. When evacuation was actually carried out about 175,000 persons, or only 34 per cent. of the total numbers in the priority classes, took advantage of the Government scheme. The position to-day—and this is of special interest—is that roughly one-half of the school children are out of the sending areas. That is due not only to the Government scheme but also to a good deal of private effort. There has been a drift back to the sending areas. Taking Scotland as a whole we find that about 50 per cent. of the persons evacuated have come home up to the present time.

Sir John Train: Is that 50 per cent. of the 137,000 you mention as having moved out?

Mr. Colville: It is 50 per cent. of those who have moved out under the Government scheme.

Sir J. Train: It means that about 75,000 are out now?

Mr. Colville: Yes, under the Government scheme; but a great number more had moved under private arrangements.


In point of fact, about half the school children are out of the cities. Taking the Government scheme, about half of the persons, including mothers as well as children, who went out under that scheme have come back.

Mr. Woodburn: If the half includes the mothers, then the proportion with regard to the children will be greater?

Mr. Colville: I was coming to that point. Of the unaccompanied children 60 per cent. of the Government evacuees are still out in the receiving areas. The drift back was greater in the case of the mothers. The percentages I have given are average percentages, but I think the House may be interested to hear some of the variations between counties. Take the extreme contrast. Of the mothers and children who went out from Dundee 74 per cent. have returned, whereas only 21 per cent. of the unaccompanied children who went from Edinburgh have come back. Those figures corroborate the general reports that unaccompanied children have, on the whole, been easier to accommodate or have settled down more readily.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: Can the right hon. Gentleman compare like with like? He compared the accompanied children in Dundee with the unaccompanied children in Edinburgh. Cannot he give us the two figures for Edinburgh or the two figures for Dundee?

Mr. Colville: I may be able to do so before the end of the Debate. My object was really not so much to compare like with like as to illustrate the fact that the unaccompanied child has stayed in many more cases than has the mother. Here are some figures which compare like with like. The following counties have retained over 80 per cent. of the unaccompanied children—Kinross, Midlothian, Nairn, Peebles, Clackmannan, East Lothian, Inverness and West Lothian. In the following counties the percentage remaining is under 50—Angus, Argyll, Perth and Wigtown. I have been trying to see whether I can draw conclusions from these figures, but I cannot. Still, it is a matter of interest to note that in certain parts of the country the unaccompanied children have stayed and that in other parts of the country, owing to various circumstances, they have not stayed to the same extent. I have been told that statistics may be made to prove any-

thing. I am not going to attempt to make these figures prove anything, but rather will pass them on to hon. Members for digestion and consideration.

Mr. Westwood: Is it not possible that the great distances to which some of these children were sent and the fact that there was not the same opportunity of parents seeing their children may have resulted in more coming back from the far away places?

Mr. Colville: It was not that. Edinburgh evacuated to Inverness and Inverness has retained over 80 per cent.

Mr. Westwood: Is it possible that they were too far away to come back?

Mr. Woodburn: Mr. Woodburn rose—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Dennis Herbert): I must ask hon. Members to allow the Minister to make his speech.

Mr. Colville: I think I am a little to blame for throwing out rather tantalising figures and inviting the House to draw conclusions. I think that when hon. Members read my speech in the OFFICIAL REPORT they will have food for thought in these figures.
So much for the statistical picture. The human picture is one of light and shade, and, unfortunately, the shade has been stressed rather more than the light. So far as can be made out from the most reliable reports, there has been a good deal of exaggeration in the account of the condition of the children on arrival in the reception areas. The result of this has been to create a quite unwarranted prejudice against the scheme. On the other hand, there is no room for complacency. Far too many of the children were found to be dirty and badly trained. We have to preserve a balance and a common sense view. Many of us know that the reasons for these troubles are to be found in the slums. We should be deluding ourselves if we blamed the inadequacy of our social services. It is a much bigger problem than that. A reasonable attitude is expressed in the following extract from a recent letter in the Press, and is humorously put. The writer, after referring to the difficulties with which she has to struggle in dealing with the evacuated children—and she did not mince her words—seems to me to put the thing in a common sense way. She wrote:


—now, with the remaining unattached children, I frankly admit that I am beginning thoroughly to enjoying reaping some reward. I know few greater satisfactions than to see these children from the slums getting some colour into their cheeks; putting on weight; growing daily less noisy and better mannered; to see their minds opening to new interests and healthy forms of fun; and to watch them discovering that life can hold lots of excitement apart from gangster fights, petty thieving and escapes from the cops. Of course, like all children they are often exasperating little devils and strain one's temper to breaking point. But, surely, in war-time we at home should not grudge straining our tempers while our young men are risking their lives, especially when we realise that what we have the chance of doing is a really fine national service on behalf of the rising generation.
That letter may not be expressed in very parliamentary language, but it brings out the point of view of a great many people.

Mr. Buchanan: It seems to know all about Glasgow.

Mr. Colville: Some of these people came up against conditions which they did not know existed and they got a shock when they found out. Then they readjusted themselves, and they are now rendering good service, realising that this service is in the national interest. Undoubtedly the children who have come from the crowded city areas have benefited from the fresh air. In one large house where there are over 50 children, under the very competent care of a Glasgow domestic science teacher, there has not even been a single cold in the head among the children. The only illness reported was one case of impetigo—curiously enough the one case of a child who would not eat his porridge. There may be a deep meaning behind that.
Let me give one or two statistics on the question of recovering billeting payment. By agreement with local authorities, this scheme is being carried out by local officials. Thanks to them, it is working very smoothly, on the whole. The full figures are not yet available, but fairly complete figures have been obtained. These figures show that, of the parents whose cases have been dealt with, 48 per cent. are paying 6s. or over, 28 per cent. are paying sums ranging from 6s. to 1s., 6 per cent. are not required to make any contribution under the scale and 18 per cent. are in receipt

of unemployment assistance or public assistance and make no contribution, since deductions are made from their allowances in respect of their children. I have beard of some cases where parents have brought children home without taking the trouble to find out how much they would have to pay. They believed they would have to pay the whole 6s. I hope that any parent who thinks he cannot afford the assessed amount will have a talk with the assessing officer before he decides to bring his child home. This may often clear up misunderstanding that may be in his mind.
What is the most hopeful line of development in future in receiving areas? Everyone recognises the real sacrifices that have been made by the receiving householders. No one on the home front has done more than the housewives who opened their homes to the children. Our aim must be to lighten their task, which will not become easier as time goes on. It is a task to which people may have given themselves unselfishly, but nevertheless the strain may tell over a longish period. Can we lighten their task? A circular issued last week suggests methods of doing this. For instance, a redistribution of billets may be needed, because one woman may be struggling with four or five children while another will have none. Probably most can be done by communal activities. The most important thing is to organise occupation for the children.
The hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk referred to communal activities. We are trying, by means of play centres and in other ways, to make their burden easier. At Christmas time, particularly, an effort should be made in this matter. In certain areas, excursions will be run for parents, but not at the New Year, for the reason that at that time transport will be taken up largely with soldiers returning on leave. We must also bear in mind that it is advisable to avoid a great arrival of parents in the reception areas on Christmas day. This is a matter on which it is impossible to lay down the law, and it would be very stupid to try to do anything of the kind. It must be left to the consideration of the parents themselves but if they go down on Sundays they must not be surprised if householders do not in all cases provide for them on arrival.

Mr. Buchanan: They will be breaking the Sabbath.

Mr. Colville: I would remind the hon. Member that the Good Book says that there are certain things that one can do on the Sabbath and one of them may be to pay a visit to the children.
The hon. Member who initiated the Debate asked me to say a word or two on the hospital scheme, and particularly about the emergency hospital scheme. He said, quite rightly, and 1 cannot disagree with him, that there were none too many beds. He will be glad to know that we are really making progress with regard to the provision of beds for casualties in war time. He asked whether a larger number of beds earmarked for casualties could be free in order to provide for the sick and to give opportunities for training. I am glad to have this opportunity of assuring the House that we are making real progress with our emergency hospital service. While no-one with a sense of responsibility would wish to be overconfident in a matter of this kind before the: event, I feel that we can meet any strain that is likely to be put on our hospital and casualty services, if our programme, which is going on fast enough, reaches completion. We have secured for the treatment of casualties some 12,000 beds in existing hospitals. We had a larger number, but we allowed a number of the beds to be filled again by specially sick cases. The number can be increased at short notice to 14,500. Adaptation of mental hospitals and three large hotels should give us, in a few months' time, some 5,100 additional beds. The hutted hospitals and hutted annexes that are being built will give us 10,000 more. In all the programmes will give us some 31,000 beds. I have spent a good deal of my time whenever I have been visiting in Scotland going round these hospitals and I have been very much impressed with the way in which these hospitals are rising up.
The needs of the ordinary sick, as well as the special war-time problem relating to military cases, are not being overlooked. Hospitals included in the scheme will be expected to admit all persons who may fairly be said to be in urgent need of institutional treatment. I stress that point. A certain proportion can be used for that purpose. We must keep in mind the possibility of air-raid casualties, but,

as I told hon. Members some weeks ago, arrangements are being made under which the additional hospital accommodation that is being provided in the different parts of the country will be available for the ordinary sick if they cannot obtain treatment elsewhere, so that our war-time work of providing these additional beds will have its bearing on the needs of the ordinary sick as well. In the limited time at my disposal I cannot go further into this matter now, but I am issuing a brochure on the subject of the hospital services which will give information in some detail. I will send a copy to all Scottish Members. I am sorry I have not it in my possession to-night but I will have it shortly. It will provide a good deal of information about this hospital scheme.
Army personnel in urgent need of institutional treatment are admitted to hospitals in the emergency service in the same way as civilian cases. In addition, arrangements have been made in Scotland, at the request of the Deputy-Director of Medical Services, Scottish Command, under which accommodation is being made available for 500 Army sick who require light hospital treatment which cannot be afforded in hospitals under the control of the military authorities. The patients are being admitted in the main to base hospitals on the understanding that they will be evacuated as rapidly as practicable if the hospital beds are required for the emergency service. An extension of this arrangement to cover some hundreds of additional patients is under consideration.
The scheme in Scotland of which I have just given a thumbnail sketch is that there are 12,000 beds in existing hospitals. That number may be raised by 2,500 by adaptation of mental hospitals and in other ways to give an additional 5,000 beds. I have in mind a programme of 31,000 beds. A number of these can be made available to help the ordinary sick in the localities in which they have been provided when they are not immediately required for casualties. They are also being made available in some degree for other cases. The point was raised earlier in the day about providing for training for the nurses and the medical personnel. We have the raw material to train but so far we may be thankful that our raw material to train on has not been brought about by casual-


ties from air raids. We must be prepared for them and we can make use of this nursing service meantime and train them to the greatest degree possible. I have taken longer over my review than I intended, but even now I have only been able to sketch the hospital service scheme. It is very important to have had this Debate in the House of Commons, in order to examine the problem, and I am sure that the Debate will still continue to raise a number of important points.

Sir J. Train: My right hon. Friend said that 12,000 beds would be available, but is he taking account of the shortage of beds in the hospitals of which there are thousands apart from the war in Glasgow? He must be well aware that in the Royal Infirmary, the Victoria Infirmary and the Western Infirmary there are hundreds of people on the waiting list. Where are those beds to be found in such places as Glasgow except by taking out some of the people who are in them?

Mr. Colville: I do not want to go back over ground which I have covered. Existing hospitals are concentrated in the big cities, but we are putting hospital annexes on the fringes of the big cities. At Rob-royston the other day I saw a very big annexe scheme being put down. There are others elsewhere and in addition to these there are ad hoc hospitals which add a great deal to the number of beds already in existence. We are in the initial stage, but already a number of beds are being allowed to go back to use.

6.14 p.m.

Mr. Leonard: With the general picture displayed by my hon. Friend from the Opposition Front Bench, I agree, because it sets out in its main details my own attitude on this matter. I was very interested in the speech of the Secretary of State especially in the passages about the future and with the part dealing with the schools. Particularly was that the case when he went in some detail into the formula, that had to be applied when application was made to determine the school which would be available for the children. I am at variance with some of my colleagues with regard to this scheme. My attitude is related to the right hon. Gentleman's own statement

that we may in the future have a very heavy bombardment to sustain, especially in view of the fact that it is not contemplated to create shelters of a very heavy character. If a heavy bombardment takes place in Glasgow, I do not think schools, protected or otherwise, are places for the children of that city.
Therefore, and especially in view of what has been stated, that fresh air has made such marked differences to those who have had the advantage of it, I have looked with favour towards any scheme which would guarantee that to the children. I have been kindly disposed to look at the dormitory system of schools which could, in my opinion, be erected very speedily. I have seen them in operation in the Midlands of England, and I have seen the result upon the children; this and the fact that education was not interrupted in any sense leads me to think that more should be done in that direction than is being done at the present time if it were adopted as a policy. With regard to erection, I notice that there are many of these dormitory hutments being erected for civil servants who are having difficulties with regard to their evacuated locations, and if it is possible there, something can be done for the children, provided that they were put in locations round our cities which would be easily accessible to the parents of the children. That is one of the main points, because many of the difficulties that have arisen in some cities have been caused by the inaccessibility of the parents to the children.
My next point is with regard to allowances to parents who cannot contribute anything towards their children's upkeep. If this thing called war continues, we may have more of these difficulties. I have been informed that in some cases the children were on holiday prior to the given date, and the date on which they were left in the homes at which they were on holiday can be countenanced for a grant. I am also informed—and cases have been given to me—that if similar conditions apply to children who, instead of being on holiday in Scotland, were on holiday in Ireland, no grant can be given to them, although it must be realised that if parents are prepared to leave children in the homes in which they are on holiday and look upon them as satisfactory homes, and if a proper check can be kept


on the amounts expended and also an assurance received from both sides that payment should not be excluded as a point to which benefit would accrue to parents, there is no reason why a grant should not be made.
I would like the Minister to give some special attention to child welfare centres. In the city of Glasgow they are at present closed. Generally, I think, they are one-storey buildings, not very heavy structures, and could be adequately and rather cheaply protected. I wish to stress the importance of the work which they perform. These child welfare centres take the child of a mother who has no other support and who must go out to work. At the present time those mothers have to find alternative accommodation and pay for it, while they have still to perform the task of providing for their livelihood. In my own division there is one such place lying absolutely empty, and the children who usually occupy it are in tenement buildings round about it. I see no reason why those children should not go back to that centre and obtain the care and guidance that such a place provides.
With regard to the reception areas, I regret to say that rather an awful spectacle took place in the main square of Glasgow this last week-end. There was a family called Ross; the man, who was receiving assistance from the Unemployment Assistance Board, and his wife and eight children had been taken to Fairway and there placed in a home. They were very happy, with the children out of danger and within reasonable access of the city. Unfortunately, the place they were put in belonged to a person who desired to occupy the house. I am not blaming anyone now.—

Mr. Sloan: You had better get on with the facts.

Mr. Leonard: I am stating the facts as they were given to me. The person desired the house and visited the family, who agreed with the reception officer that they should go to another place. They went into another house, but, unfortunately, they were faced with the fact that they had moved without the consent of the officer. The officer, it is alleged, sent this family back to Glasgow. They got to Glasgow without any guidance, and they were directed to the poor house,

where they remained for the week-end. On Monday they were found in the main Glasgow square and had to be given attention by the medical authorities. When families are allocated to homes of any description, it is very desirable that there should be a reasonable surety of being able to continue in them during the period of danger, and it should be made clear to the officers in reception areas that they have no right to return evacuees to the cities from which they had been evacuated without adequate arrangements being made for their reception, as I am advised took place in the city of Glasgow.
With regard to administration, this is not a major point, but it appears strange to me that the three very important units —ambulance units, first-aid posts, and first-aid parties—have divided control. I am informed that the ambulance units and first-aid posts are under the control of the Department of Health, but that the first-aid parties are under the control of the Home Office. I am advised that this has caused slight difficulties, and it might be desirable to examine the possibility of getting those three units which all act in unison under one control. My final point deals with the regulations that apply in Scotland with regard to the first-aid posts. I have had the advantage of looking at the regulations covering England, and I see that in the English regulations concerning the personnel of the air-raid posts provision is made for 50 per cent. of the total being full-time appointments. Circular No. 35 from the Department of Health of Scotland reads:
Circular No. 18 contained certain recommendations as to the organisation of the personnel allotted to each local authority's district in accordance with the terms of Home Office Circular No. 1 1939, dated 4th January, 1939. Briefly, the effect of these recommendations was that in those areas to which personnel had been allocated on the basis of 60 per post (ten men and 50 women) the full-time personnel should constitute 20 per cent. ‖
I would like the Minister to tell us what factors make it necessary to differentiate between England and Scotland, allowing 50 per cent. full-time for England and only 20 per cent. for Scotland, and in particular I wish to draw his attention to the peculiar position in which Glasgow is situated. It is impossible to give adequate service unless the peculiar character of the Clyde and of Glasgow is considered, because there are the docks, all the engineering works, and the munition


works to be considered, in addition to the congestion of the city. There are other parts of Scotland as well, but Glasgow in particular should be given recommendation of the basis which applies in similar circumstances in England. There is also the difficulty that unfortunately in many of the vulnerable areas it is more difficult to get volunteers than it is in the less vulnerable areas. Because those areas are very vulnerable and also because the inhabitants will not come forward for volunteer work, they should have an opportunity of elasticity with regard to the applications for personnel.

6.27 p.m.

Sir R. W. Smith: I have been very interested in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Scotland, but I was rather surprised that he left out one point when dealing with evacuees. All of us were struck by the fact that their health was not as it was expected to be, nor were their habits as clean as many people expected. I do not want to take up the time of the Committee, but I want to put this point strongly. No steps seem to be taken at the present time to do anything to train these children to be more cleanly and to improve their habits. There was talk about opening more schools. When I hear about opening schools, I am rather inclined to think that that point is often raised by many of the teachers in the country who are more interested in their employment in the teaching profession than they are in the welfare of the children.

Mr. Foot: Is it not in the interests of the children to open the schools?

Sir R. W. Smith: It may be in the interests of the children if they obtained proper education. What I want to point out with regard to the question of cleanliness is that the teachers are not very willing to take any of the responsibility in this direction. I had the pleasure of working on the education authority in my own county for some years before I came into this House, and it was my duty to inspect country schools. In one of the country schools which I visited the children's hands were filthy, their faces were dirty, and they had no handkerchiefs and had to use anything in the

form of a handkerchief. I said to the teacher, "You have soap, basins, and towels provided by the Government. Why are not these children's faces and hands clean?" The reply given to me by the teacher was that it was not his duty to look after the cleanliness of the children. When I brought that matter to the notice of the school management committee, the same reply was given to me, namely, that it was not the duty of the teachers to look after the cleanliness of the children. What is the use of having medical inspection of children if the teachers do not make sure that they use the soap and water provided? It is ridiculous to talk about throat trouble when the children have no handkerchiefs and are not taught to blow their noses.

Mr. Colville: I presume that my hon. Friend is not speaking about the present time?

Sir R. W. Smith: No. It may be better now—[Interruption.] Things do not seem to have been any better in some of the towns from which the children were evacuated. They came in a very dirty condition, and the right hon. Gentleman has not told us that he is going to do anything to put that right. The first thing we should do is to see that these children are clean and healthy. Our child welfare and medical school services have evidently been very deficient. We are told that being in the country improves the health of the children. Why not go further and see that while they are in the country the children are taught to be clean? I say, with all deference, to the Secretary of State for Scotland. Let us take the opportunity to train children to be clean. We often hear from the Secretary of State about infantile mortality. Everyone knows that that is largely due to lack of training and lack of attention when the children are small. The thing to do is to train the children to be clean, and then, when they themselves become mothers, they will know how to look after their children. We have an opportunity now, but nothing seems to be done to take advantage of it. The Government are going to spend money on films and on various other things. Why not first teach the children to look after themselves?

Mr. Colville: Is the hon. Member referring particularly to the country areas


now, or to the town areas? It was understood that any children evacuated after the first evacuation were to be inspected, and that they did not go out of the towns unless they were clean. I take it that his desire is that in the country areas there should be the sort of teaching that he recommends?

Sir R. W. Smith: Not only in the country areas, but in the urban areas as well. Improvement is needed just as much in the urban areas. The children in the urban areas need to be trained to be clean, so that you will not have to have a medical inspection before they go out. The Secretary of State admits now that it is necessary to have a medical examination in order to see whether these children are clean before they can be sent out. and that is an indication of failure in this respect. I deprecate very much the practice of reading one letter from one person in order to prove anything, as the Secretary of State did just now. Let us deal with the big point, and not concern ourselves merely with one woman's opinion.
Then there is the question of emergency hospitals. That was raised in two articles by Professor Charles McNeil which appeared in the "Scotsman" on 3rd November and 6th November. Those articles contain a number of interesting points with regard to the health of children. He points out that in this coming winter there will be a certain amount of infectious illness and a certain amount of non-infectious illness, and that the treatment of illness in young children is often very different from that of illness in grown-ups. Therefore, in this emergency there should be places where the nurses and the medical men who look after them are accustomed to dealing with infant children. I think that is a very important point. You have brought into the country a large number of children, and our hospital accommodation for infectious illness is very limited in the country districts. If we have an outbreak of diphtheria, scarlet fever, or anything of that sort, we ought to have enough accommodation for the children to be properly segregated. I hope the Secretary of State will not think I am criticising what has been done. I think that in this matter of evacuation the country has done wonderfully. But we should be failing in our duty if, having found

the weaknesses that exist in connection with the health of children, we did not take steps at once to put those matters right.

6.37 p.m.

Mr. McGovern: I am sure that this Debate will have been useful in connection with the general question of evacuation and the problems that have arisen from evacuation. It seems to me that we are depending almost entirely for the initiation of Debates on Scottish problems upon the few fleeting visits we have from the hon. Member on the Opposition Front Bench. [Interruption.] Well, it appears to me that the Debate has been initiated by him, and that he is here to-day taking part in an arranged Debate between the two Front Benches. After having taken part in the Debate, the hon. Gentleman, who is dividing his time very unequally between service to the National Government and service to his division, will no doubt be able to go home to-night and say, "Little man, you've had a busy day."
In spite of that, the Debate has been useful. When the Secretary of State said that many of us were annoyed with the enemy that has prevented the great progress to which he and the hon. Gentleman above the Gangway had jointly looked forward in this country, I am quite sure that we were not all agreed as to the "enemy" that was responsible for the continuation of this great human and social problem. We are suffering to-day from the effects of allowing the private interests of the world to be in the hands of a few persons whose economic rivalry and contradictions have forced this country into a war that has thrown up tremendous problems, which the human race has got to solve. If human beings can apply their minds not only to war, but to the great economic causes that produce war and produce all the contradictory problems that ensue from a great world war, we may look forward to great strides being made in human progress at the conclusion of this great conflagration.
It is no use for hon. Members to come to this House armed with facts regarding the conduct of evacuees. I am sure nobody wishes to utter any condemnation of either the evacuees or those who have received them, very kindly in many cases; those whose homes, I would say,


have been invaded, in many cases against their will. I am human enough to believe that in similar circumstances I should not accept that position without a certain amount of regret. There is something to be said on both sides; both with regard to the people whose homes have been invaded and with regard to those who, through no fault of their own, have been compelled to leave areas where they have always resided hitherto. In many cases these people have lived in those areas since their childhood and become old people without ever having had a holiday. It is only at such a time as this that such people have been able to get out of their industrial compounds.
I agree with the Secretary of State when he says that it is not only a question of children who are badly trained or dirty in their habits, and of the intolerance of those who are receiving them. There is a background of probably a century or more of industrial life, of slum-dom, of people herded together like cattle in a byre in olden days, of children who have had little or no opportunity for culture, whose fathers and mothers have had to throw them out at the age of 11 into part-time employment and at the age of 14 into the industrial compound and into the mine. These parents are compelled to live under housing conditions that would shock any human being with any feelings of humanity, and they are compelled to drive their children out at an early hour in the morning in order to get living space in the home. It ill becomes those who have lived, by rent, profit, and interest, on these people, and, by a seizure of the unpaid wages of the workers, have themselves lived in riotous luxury, to utter condemnation of the victims they have created and the unholy social system under which they have compelled these people to live. The less that can be heard of that attitude towards these children and their mothers, the better.
I am not going to deny that there are children and mothers with dirty habits. I have had 28 years' experience in the building trade, during which time I have been going every day in and out of houses in the area that I represent, and on some days I have visited as many as 20 houses in the course of my occupation. I

realise, therefore, the lack of opportunity and the lack of training that these children have had, and the environment in which they have been brought up, often in houses that no amount of effort could convert into home, because they were bug-ridden, vermin-infested dwellings. In these places, where many of them are compelled to live, as I have seen in various areas in Glasgow when I worked for the Glasgow Corporation, with 20 families to one W.C., and one sink on the stairhead with one tap, we cannot expect children, who are brought up under such conditions and are looked upon as slaves for the industrial markets or of cannon-fodder in war when they become 18 years of age, to have all the culture of the bishop's son or the Cabinet Minister's son and daughter. It is too outrageous, even in a discussion in this House, to imagine that these children should have that culture which they have never been allowed to develop because of the conditions in which they live and the economic circumstances surrounding their home life. Therefore, in my estimation, taking into account all the difficulties, it is surprising that so many children succeed in rising above their surroundings. A large percentage of the children rise above the surroundings in which they have been brought up.
Children have been evacuated from these areas into the country districts. It is a tremendous drawback in the eyes of those who have been taken from an industrial town to go into a country area, though it may not be so in reality. These children who have been with one another from infancy have been planted in a country area and separated from that kind of life. It is probable that after three months they might be so inspired with their new life and environment that there would be a certain reaction if they were plunged back into the industrial towns. They would have a new appreciation of country life and of its opportunities.
It is also true that people in the country areas have never had a proper appreciation of the life of these children in the slums and congested areas of the great cities. Therefore, I sympathise with those whose homes have been invaded. The sanctity of the home is a great thing, but to be compelled to accept another family when having only limited accommodation, and perhaps one bathroom and one


cooking apartment, is very difficult, and is inclined to put the roughest edge on tempers on both sides.
There is the question of all the people drifting back again, and I do not wonder at it. When the mothers of the children go into these homes they have no home life there, and they are expected in many cases, we have been told, to go out of the house after they have had their breakfast. They can do nothing but wander through the streets or parks. In the coming winter there will not only be dampness but fog, and it will be a tremendous trial for older people. Children can overcome these difficulties to a greater extent than the older people. I am glad to hear at least from the Secretary of State that in the evacuation after the first period was a proper and more thorough inspection of children going out of the cities before they reached these areas where they were to reside. The breakdown and trouble in the first evacuation arose because the children did not go through a clearing centre to be examined by a doctor, and were not cleaned by some personal attendant where cleanliness was required. I remember, when 1 was 17 years of age, joining the Royal Navy, and when I went to Great Hamilton Street, Glasgow, the first thing they did was to send me to Queen head Baths for a bath. I was then sent overnight to London to Whitehall—that was my first association with Whitehall— and when I had passed I was told to take a hot bath. On the same Saturday evening I was sent to Chatham Naval Dockyard, and the first thing that happened there was that I had to have another bath. I had had no food, but had had plenty of water. I believe in feeding the man inside and cleaning him outside, but from 2 o'clock on the Friday afternoon to 6 o'clock on the Saturday evening I had had no food, but I had had three baths. The result was I was a perfectly clean citizen and was prepared for the ordinary occupations in the Naval dockyard. I have never had any great objection to baths, and I think that part of the trouble in this matter has been that in a large number of cases in the great industrial centres there have not been opportunities for people to obtain baths. There has been an improvement in this matter in recent years owing to the building of the newer type of house, but I remember that when there were five or six of us in our

family each of us had to take a bath in a tub, in the only apartment we had, on Friday and Tuesday evenings.

Mr. Buchanan: Twice a week?

Mr. McGovern: Yes, twice a week. Sometimes when I had been on a cycling tour it was twice a day. I have always believed that cleanliness is next to godliness. We had to bath ourselves in the one apartment, and if there is a desire on the part of fathers, mothers and children to escape having a bath because they have not a bathroom or proper accommodation, one can see how dirty habits grow.
This problem which has arisen in the evacuation is one which any person with vision might have known would take place. To move 175,000 people in a small country is a tremendous job. In spite of my views with regard to the war, I believe that those who have taken part in many of the efforts during the war should be complimented, although there may be faults to be found and things to be rectified. Evacuation was bound to produce a tremendous amount of failure. If there had been an earlier decision to go ahead with the provision of large underground shelters in industrial areas, there would have been no need for the large-scale evacuation which has taken place. If it was intended that there should be this evacuation, wooden housing centres ought to have been established in order to allow these people to enjoy the development of some sort of communal and social life.
I spent two years in Australia, and I went from North Queensland right down to Melbourne, touching every town, and I found that all the farming schemes in Australia broke down because isolated individuals were sent away from their home environment when the success of those schemes was dependent upon settling familities and allowing them to develop their social, economic and cultural life in a communal way instead of isolating individuals from those whom they had known all their lives. The hunger for association is a tremendous thing. I found it at times as a grown individual. I hungered for the home association of people like the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) and all my political associates in the Labour and Socialist movement in Glasgow with whom I had


grown up. Therefore, I can understand the desire for association.
I cannot understand the question of vulnerability in relation to schools. My boy of II years of age attends a school on the Toll Cross area which is just over the border in the county. We live in the Glasgow area, but he goes to a county school with which Glasgow has an arrangement. There are county and city children in this school. My boy has been at that school since the first opening shortly after the outbreak of war. Attendance was part-time for a week or two, but it has been whole-time attendance for quite a time now. There are other children around there, and there is a school in Toll Cross which they are not now permitted to attend. My boy passes it on his way and it is not a quarter of a mile from the school he attends, but that school has not been opened because it is in a vulnerable area, but it is a great deal further away than the school which my boy attends. This will interest the Secretary of State for Scotland. The school which my boy attends is not a quarter of a mile from Colville's Iron and Steel Works, but the other school is half a mile away.
This shows the utter stupidity of the whole scheme. If the war should last for four years, which is not such an outrageous possibility, though it is one we would all deplore, what will happen? We have been told by some people that precautions have been taken for it lasting three years, by others for it lasting five years, while there are people who have gone to the extent of suggesting 10 years, but if the war should last three years, what is likely to happen to the education of the children of the nation? If you take six months out of the educational life of a child in many cases you will be putting it back almost to the A.B.C. period, because some of the children are not unwilling to remain outside school. I remember after raising the question of the opening of schools with the Secretary of State for Scotland some time ago, that on the following day a note was put through my letter-box on which was written in childish handwriting," No more school or we will raise a boycott of you."
I can understand that, because when I was at school I liked the outside of it better than the inside. I used to play

truant, sometimes for two or three weeks, by getting various excuses sent to the school as the reason for my absence. I was a problem to my mother in relation to school, and I have great sympathy for school children. Nevertheless, I realise that this is a problem that ought to be solved and that the Minister to-day was not in the position that he ought not to have been in in facing this Debate. He ought to have come with more information as to those upon whom the real responsibility rests for the decision with regard to reopening the schools. If it is to be decided whether the schools are in a vulnerable area, why has not a decision been reached? Why cannot the children from certain schools in Glasgow be sent to other schools that are open? Why cannot the right hon. Gentleman mention the schools to be opened, stating that provision must be made in the schools to be opened for the children from the schools that are closed, even if there is to be a two-shift system in the schools? We should welcome that as a step towards the education of the children in these areas.
Mothers come to me from time to time, as they do to most hon. Members when they visit their constituencies at the week-end, and they say that children are being summoned to juvenile courts. There is an increasing number of children in Glasgow who are getting into the hands of the authorities, because of the fact that their energy is being diverted into channels which result in trouble for themselves and their parents. Mothers and fathers are, therefore, anxious about the reopening of the schools. There are children from 11 to 12 years of age in regard to whom it is essential that there should be a continuation of education in order that they should not lapse back and lose the progress that they have made during their period at school.
I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to have this matter of the reopening of schools taken up seriously at once. He tells us that it will depend largely on whether air raids take place. That may be true. I remember being in Barcelona when one day a school was bombed. I do not suggest that they attempted to bomb the school. They were bombing ships in the harbour, and near the harbour was a school for children who had developed physical troubles—invalid children. Forty-two of these children were


blown to pieces by one bomb. One body next day was picked up from the roof of a building a considerable distance away, having been blown from the school by the terrific force of the bomb.
We cannot go on the assumption that these children are to have no education during the whole period of the war. Glasgow might be regarded entirely as a vulnerable area. We have Beardmore's at Parkhead in the midst of one area, and we have the shipyards in Govan, where there are also a large number of engineering shops. In almost every division in Glasgow you can find a large number of works, even in the middle-class areas. These might be bombed. If it is to be said that there is a possibility that all these places may be bombed, then I can visualise a position in which we should not be provided in any way with schools.

Mr. Colville: It is not intended that it should be said that Glasgow, for example, is an area where education will be impossible. What I said was that it would be inadvisable to open certain schools in certain areas. I could have mentioned a number of such schools, but I thought it would be inadvisable to do so, because I am trying to reduce the number, in consultation with the A.R.P. authorities. In the event of our not being able to reopen the schools it will be the task of the authorities, as far as possible, to get the children transferred to schools elsewhere, in order to keep education running.

Mr. McGovern: I am thinking at the moment of one school in my own area, St. Michaels, which might be regarded as a dangerous school, but what I am concerned about is, when is a scheme going to be evolved that will give these children an opportunity of education? It is no use the right hon. Gentleman saying that this or that is a vulnerable area, unless we know what provision is to be made for the education of children from those areas. The war has been going on for some time. The Government ought to have thought out these problems long before the war and have made preparations. The fact that they made no preparations need not be an excuse now for not going ahead and getting something done in circumstances of this kind.
I want some clear understanding of what is going to be done. A conference of some kind has been suggested. I do not see the need for a conference. I only see the need for a discussion between the education authority and the Minister, so that we may know that certain schools will be opened immediately, that others have been placed on the danger list and that children from the evacuated schools will be accommodated in the schools that are to be opened, even on the two-shift system. That would give an opportunity for schools to open at once. There is tremendous feeling in regard to this matter in the City of Glasgow, not only amongst parents but amongst those educationists who have the interests of education and of the children at heart. Therefore, I suggest that in this respect the Minister has badly failed to-day in giving us no real definite understanding as to what is to be done.
In regard to other matters, such as hospitals, etc., I will leave other hon. Members to deal with them. I am concerned with this particular problem, which is the outcome of the selfishness of a small section of the community, whose economic interests have driven us into war, with the result that the great mass of the people have to sacrifice themselves, their comforts and their opportunities because of these rivalries that exist. Because the war has taken place these problems are thrown up and we have to be ready to face them as they are thrown up. We must ask that, in the end, the people will profit by the knowledge that as long as this materialist system of capitalism remains we shall have war, we shall have this aftermath of war, we shall have these problems, and that the only way to get rid of the whole of these problems is to begin to build a civilised system by taking control of the means of life out of the hands of the few and placing them in the hands of the many.

7.9 p.m.

Mr. G. A. Morrison: It is a very ill wind indeed that has blown us two Debates on Scottish Education in six weeks. I refer, of course, to the war, and not to any initiative from the Front Opposition Bench. This is not an Estimates Debate, and it will permit the mention of some things which might require legislation. It has been said that education


was an early casualty in this war. One of the blows was the suspension of the raising of the school-leaving age, which we debated in the House a few weeks ago. The other has been the commandeering of school buildings. I am assured by various correspondents that commandeering in some places has taken place quite unnecessarily. It is still going on. Only to-day I received from the South of Scotland a protest in bitter terms on this matter. I have been assured that in some cases other suitable buildings were available, but, as an hon. Member said in the Debate last week, education has evidently been too easily elbowed aside.
The decision to re-open schools in evacuation areas is undoubtedly right. It ought to be done at once. Very large numbers of children of varying ages have been idle for weeks and getting into mischief. The figure as regards Glasgow has been given as 100,000. I am not going to discuss whether the re-opening of schools in evacuation areas will induce parents to bring children back from the country; that risk must be taken. Whatever happens, a very considerable number of children will remain in the towns. The risk can be reduced by proper air-raid precautions and by running double shifts. The great point is that the process of reopening shall be expedited in every possible way. Will those who try to provide for the supervision of out-of-school activities of children in these areas please remember the unemployed teachers, unemployed temporarily or otherwise, unemployed, it may be, by reason of the evacuation scheme itself? I have rather a higher opinion of some of the temporary measures which have been taken to overcome the present difficulties than was expressed in the recent education Debate by the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Cove), who poured scorn upon educating children in private houses. As against his opinion, I would set the opinion of the late Secretary to the Scottish Education Department, who sees in it something with very great possibilities.
In the Debate on 9th October I mentioned the closing of the junior instruction centres. At that time I was not aware that so many of them had been closed, but I know now that thousands of young people, owing to the closing of the junior instruction centres, have nowhere to go.

Edinburgh is justly proud of its day continuation classes. I am told that all these except one are at present closed. Add to this the disquieting fact that juvenile unemployment is increasing, and that the City of Edinburgh has 1,300 to 1,400 young people unemployed—a higher number than ever before. Some of these junior instruction centres would make admirable welfare centres. There are good premises, good equipment, and trained staffs ready to hand, and if the Ministry of Labour would co-operate with education authorities and teachers, much good would result, and result very quickly. I want to know whether there is any prospect of junior instruction centres being re-opened before long.
I hope that those who control the issues will pay careful attention to the two speeches which were made recently by the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery) on the question of continuation education. It has remained a dead letter for a generation, and I should be very glad to see some attempt made to put it into operation. Six weeks ago I asked the right hon. Gentleman whether education authorities which were in a position to set up some of these classes would be able to get a grant; and the answer was that he thought they would. I hope something will be done about it, because some of these centres might also form the nucleus of many welfare activities besides the actual instruction which is given in the daytime. The last war saw the provision for continuation education put on the Statute Book; I hope that this one will see it become a reality.
In the reception areas much still remains to be done. We have to retain and in some cases regain the good will of the people who live there, and make them feel that they are doing a valuable and highly appreciated service. At present some of them are feeling that they have been let down, as one of them said to me in the reception area which I know best. Mistakes have been made, owing largely to the hurry in which the original move was made. I heard that in one large urban area it had taken five weeks' hard work to prepare for a second and smaller wave of evacuation; and I am not surprised. It is a great pity that more progress had not been made with the erection of school camps. Even one or two of the seven which were to have been allotted


to Scotland would have been useful in this emergency. Any further evacuation should be the subject of full consultation between the sending and the receiving area. The working of the scheme could be reviewed in the light of experience, and possible improvements indicated, and, best of all, both sides might get to understand each other's difficulties. There is no limit to the civic spirit and patriotism of our people, but they do like to be consulted, as indeed they have every right to be.
A word also on the need for providing organised recreation in evacuation areas. The Secretary of State has referred to what has been done by the Scottish Film Council. May I supplement what he said? There are two associations, the Scottish Film Council and the Scottish Educational Film Association. The latter consists of a number of teachers who have banded themselves together to explore the possibilities of the cinema in schools. They have done some valuable research work. Not only so, but in the beginning of the emergency, with the help and sympathy of Directors of Education in Glasgow and Edinburgh, teachers were seconded to go round with these film units as being familiar with children and with the kind of films used, and able to make use of them to the best advantage. I think a word of acknowledgment is due to the teachers who have done this service. That kind of thing can with great advantage, be widely extended. Another possible help would be the extension of the county library scheme. In the reception areas, with the increased population, more books are required and in some of the larger counties more centres. Hon. Members would be glad to hear that the Youth Committee is co-ordinating these activities in reception areas, and seeing to it that all get a share and that no district, however remote, is left unaided.
In the course of evacuating by families as against evacuation by schools, although both have their advantages, it may be that the pupils of secondary schools find themselves widely scattered. They may find themselves in an area where there is no secondary school or, if one exists, it does not provide the kind of (durational course which they have been pursuing. I am told that adjustments are being made. I hope they will be made extensively and very rapidly. Other incidental worries are, for instance, the

change of text books, or the fact that children who are accustomed to get free books are transferred to an area where that is done only to a limited extent. These things can be very annoying, and one sympathises with those who complain of them. May I mention what has been done by the Education Committee of Glasgow in establishing, in a reception area in the South of Scotland, a secondary school where no secondary school ever existed before? That is a very interesting experiment, and it will be carefully watched. It is a residential school, and co-educational.
May I say a word or two on the position of the teachers? Many of them who are working away from home have to put up with insufficient time for their work, unsuitable premises, and lack of books and other equipment, but I think we can trust them to make the best of a difficult job. Generous tributes have been paid to their work, from the Front Bench and indeed from all parts of the House. The late Lord Haldane, in addressing teachers, once told them that there was no profession which made such a call upon idealism as theirs. I have found that no one understands that better than the teachers themselves. At the same time it ought not to be made too difficult or too expensive for them at any time to exercise that idealism. In reception areas, especially in remote and lonely areas, they are finding themselves on duty for 15 or 16 or even more hours a day. The burden ought not to be made too heavy. Many of these people have to maintain their own homes in the cities from which they have been evacuated.
Another matter to which I wish to refer is the leaving certificate. The examination in the course of half a century has been gradually adjusted and improved until it occupies a very honourable and useful part in the educational system. It is, indeed, a high compliment to the Scottish Education Department's management of that examination that the mention of the possibility of its extinction, even its temporary extinction, caused such dismay in Scotland. We are all very glad to hear that some kind of certificate is to be given, and what we are anxious to know is whether that substitute certificate is to find acceptance in the universities and among the other bodies which exact such a certificate


as an entrance qualification. It that information is available, we should be glad to have it.

7.44 p.m.

Mr. Sloan: I have been to a large extent disappointed by the speech of the Secretary of State for Scotland on the subject of Scottish education. It seems to me that in some districts in Scotland education is almost coming to an end. It is for that reason that hon. Members on these benches make a strong protest, and urge that all possible steps should be taken to restore our educational system. It is evident, I think, that we shall emerge from this war materially poorer than we entered it. No attempt is being made to lead the country to believe that Germany will pay all, and more than all, the cost of the war. Materially we shall be poorer, and, therefore, it is all the more necessary that we should hold on to whatever cultural advantages we possess in this country. Scotland has always prided itself upon its cultural advantages. We feel that ever since the beginning of the war, steps have been taken to frustrate our educational services. First, there was the postponement of the bringing into effect of the extension of the school-leaving age. At the end of the last war, in 1918, there was passed the Scottish Education Act, which gave the Secretary of State power to name the appointed day for raising the school-leaving age. We thought that Scotland had made a remarkable step forward. For 21 years education authorities all over Scotland have demanded the naming of the appointed day, and now, 21 years later, we are again frustrated by having that advantage again taken away from us.
We have heard a great deal this evening on the question of evacuation, which has been disturbing the minds of the people of the country. I think that both the evacuation areas and the reception areas have carried out a very difficult and delicate task with a great amount of patience, tact, and sympathy. I am glad that little attempt has been made to-night to assess the blame for the breakdown that has taken place. It is important to remember that it is the war"which has forced the problem of evacuation upon us, and whatever we may think of the war, whether we agree with it or

object to it, and whatever may be its causes, we must recognise that the paramount desire of the people of this country is that the women and children, and sick, disabled and elderly people, should receive all the protection that we can give to them. It was for that reason that there was evacuation. It must not be forgotten that evacuation is a new thing to us. We have never had to face it before, although I believe that, hundreds of years ago, the people in my county were evacuated when the Englishmen came across the border. That, however, is too remote to be taken into consideration now in discussing the problems of evacuation. In looking at the matter from the point of view of a receiving area, as my area is, I am glad that the evacuation problem has been dealt with in a very sympathetic manner. The problem was made all the more difficult, because it came upon us so suddenly. It must be recognised that the Government are largely to blame because of their vacillations and the time which they took to make up their minds, so that, when evacuation started, it came upon us like a thunderbolt. One morning we were told that there were thousands of people to be sent to our districts, and we had to make the best of a very difficult situation. It was an endeavour to solve a problem that cannot be solved so simply.
While one can appreciate the difficulties of the evacuation areas, the greater difficulties were encountered in the receiving areas, to which the children were sent. With regard to the difficulties that arose, I will quote a statement from Dr. Hepburn the Director of Education in my county, who said:
The hurried nature of the evacuation prevented the sending authority applying any standards of medical scrutiny or selection. The result has been that some children—the number of whom has not yet been definitely ascertained—stood in need of medical attention before they left Glasgow. Some of them were dealt with on their arrival. So far there have been two cases of notifiable infectious disease, both unfortunately affecting children billeted on dairy farms in the county. It must also be recorded that a disturbing number of children—the precise figures cannot be given—arrived in certain parishes in an unclean state and inadequately clad. Some householders are reported as being upset by the unexpected responsibilities they have been compelled to assume, and although in most cases the situation appears to have been faced with imagination and good humour, resentment has been not infrequently expressed.


That is the sort of feeling which was prevalent. I regret that in many instances such isolated cases have been much exaggerated. To that extent difficulties have been created in dealing with this question. We have now to face the problem of future evacuation. We recognise that the matter is not closed and that in future this question will have to be faced in a more serious aspect. I do not think it will be anticipated that this war will soon come to an end, and if we are to accept the statement of the Prime Minister this afternoon, it will become more brutal and bestial as it goes on. We had the word Hun resuscitated for the first time during this war by the First Lord of the Admiralty the other day, and we had the idea this afternoon that measures are to be taken both by Germany and ourselves that will bring more bestiality and brutality into the war than we have had so far. In these circumstances it will be necessary to evacuate the children from the vulnerable areas. We shall be making a fundamental mistake if we think that the present method of evacuation can continue. I speak as one who lives in a reception area which has treated this matter sympathetically and with care. It is one of the districts which went out of its way to make the evacuees welcome. The billeting officers, the voluntary workers. and the people who received the children into their homes did their utmost to make them feel at home.
Everybody must recognise, however, that this cannot continue for an indefinite period. We are traditionally a family people, and however enthusiastically our people may have entered into this matter to begin with, and no matter how big their hearts and how sympathetic they are, there will come a time when the ordinary man and woman and their family will want their house to themselves. Therefore, in the coming days, when the problem may become more acute, the Government will require to find new ways and means and new methods of dealing with this serious problem. We must face the question of receiving these children in some camp or dormitory system, for we have entered an entirely new phase. In past wars the duty of the civilian population was to cheer the troops to the station and leave them there. War was an impersonal matter to them. That cannot continue. The people of the

country now live in a state of tension, and they demand that extreme safety measures should be taken.
It is necessary now to move our civilian population. They cannot be moved into people's private houses. The Secretary of State has already said something about housing accommodation in Scotland, and everybody knows that there is little surplus accommodation in working-class houses. As far as my observation has gone, the working classes have taken most interest in evacuation and have been most sympathetic. We have still two-and three-roomed houses in abundance, and there is no surplus accommodation in them. It will, therefore, be necessary to confiscate or requisition or acquire the mansion houses in Scotland and go in for a large-scale system of building camps. There is no question of our ability to do it. If we had spent the £60,000,000 which we lent to Turkey in building accommodation for our own people, we could have solved the problem almost immediately. If we had spent a tithe of the British capital that has been lost in Poland, there would have been no difficulty with regard to the evacuees.
I hope that the Secretary of State and the Government will give this matter their undivided attention and that steps will be taken to secure for our children places where they can not only be housed and fed, but where educational and recreational schemes can be set up for them. Some people think the war will go on. I hope it will collapse quickly and that in the near future we shall find ways and means of getting out of this horrible affair, but if we are to sit down, as seems likely, behind the Siegfried and the Magi not Lines, and if all the countries are to organise their economies behind those lines, the possibility is that the war will go on indefinitely. If that be so, we shall have to rearrange our economy and mode of life. We have to rearrange our education, and must take these women and children who have been evacuated out of the houses they are in and put them into a new atmosphere, and that can only be done by providing large camps and other centres to which they can be transferred.

8.1 p.m.

Mr. Cassells: I think that, speaking generally, the House would, to a great extent, resent the personal note which


was struck by the hon. Member hon Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) in his opening remarks when he referred in somewhat embittered language to my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Falkirk (Mr. Westwood). His point was, as I understood it, that this was a Debate of joint agreement between the Secretary of State for Scotland and my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs. If one accepts that as being the case, it certainly redounds to the credit of this House that on such an acute problem there can be an agreement which stimulates both sides of the House to come out into the open and discuss the problem in an honest, decent, straightforward effort to arrive at whatever satisfactory solution is possible. In my opinion, one good purpose has been served by the evacuation, and that is that it has shown one section of the people of the country precisely how the ordinary working-class people have been compelled to live, and I hope that when hostilities cease—as they must ultimately cease—in our favour, the experiences of the past few weeks will not have fallen on arid ground.
Let us not forget that this is a war not on one front, but on two fronts. We are waging a war on a foreign battlefield in which, I sincerely trust, we shall be successful, but at the same time we have a very difficult war on the home front. When I speak about the home front I refer to the care and welfare of the women and children left behind, and I say with sincerity and a full sense of responsibility that if we are not careful at the present time and in the days to come we may well find that we have succeeded on the foreign front but have grossly failed on the home front. During the short time I have been in this House I have been repeatedly perturbed at the time spent on questions regarding foreign policy. Day by day, week by week, and month by month there have been questions and Debates on those problems, and sometimes I have been prompted to ask myself when we would pay soe little attention to the interests of our people at home, and when we should realise that the successful nation in the future will not be the nation of men endowed physically but the nation of men endowed with intellectual attainments. It is from that particular aspect that I approach this educational problem.
Let us assume, as one is bound to assume from the tenour of the Debate, that the House generally desires educational facilities to be afforded to the children. What is the proposal? Frankly, I am very much disturbed by the lack of information in the speech of the Secretary of State for Scotland. There was an abundance of information in it, but it was devoid of any practical proposition. He proposes that, as times goes on the schools in evacuation areas, shall be reopened. What is the concrete policy of the Government on the question of whether attendance in these evacuation areas shall be optional or compulsory? The circular issued by the Government was, in my opinion, couched in thoroughly nebulous language. It is indefinite and is, in my humble opinion, a document which will stimulate parents whose children are in the areas where it is assumed that danger will not exist to bring back their children to the danger areas. The wording of the circular is:
His Majesty's Government have decided that such schools in evacuation areas as can be made available for educational purposes shall be reopened for the education of the children of parents who desire them to attend.
I look at the problem in this way, that with war there goes risk. If parents whose children have been evacuated bring them back I say in all sincerity that there should be a definite obligation upon those parents for the education of their children and it should be compulsory. I am not saying that the average father and mother do not desire their children to be educated, but I am saying very definitely —and it is borne out by the speeches in this House this afternoon—that of parents believe, as the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) said, that the schools selected for their children are in a dangerous area they will not send them. That is why the Government should here and now decide what schools, if any, are in dangerous areas, and then segregate those schools and say that they will not be used; but the other schools should be immediately reopened and the education should be compulsory.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Captain McEwen): Without protection?

Mr. Buchanan: What protection have they in the streets?

Mr. Cassells: I was coming to the question of protection. To my mind it would be positively foolhardy, as things are at the present time, to send children back to school without some reasonable degree of protection being given to them. Who is responsible for giving that protection? The responsibility does not rest with this side of the House but devolves upon the hon. Gentleman's Government. If it be true—and I assume from the nature of the interjection that it is—that there are many schools in these areas who have not that protection, the sooner the hon. Gentleman's Government sets about doing it, the better it will be for everybody concerned. It is said that to take children back to, say, Glasgow, and put them in the schools would be dangerous, but let us analyse the position. Is it more dangerous for children to be in cinemas than to be in schools? No protection at all is given in the average cinema, but in the average school, of which I have visited a number in recent weeks, there is a greater degree of safety than there is outside.
If these children are to be left to run loose and wild in the streets, what will be the position in the years to come? The hon. Member for Shettleston visualised lack of education over a period of six months. What are the most receptive years of life, in the stimulation of the mind to better things? Everyone who has tried to study these problems knows that the most important years of life are from 10 to 14 years of age. I place before the House my experience, for what it is worth. During the last 14 years I have been going about from court to court in Scotland, dealing almost daily with questions relating to juvenile crime. Take the average case of the juvenile delinquent and trace it back to its origin, and you will find either that the environment has been largely responsible or that the child has not received the educational opportunities to which it was legally and morally entitled.
The only other criticism is this: If these evacuation schemes are to continue, I suggest we should open the schools immediately, selected schools, and compel education authorities to give education immediately. The Government should make it essential that the education should be compulsory. Maybe the Government explanation will be that there is not sufficient teaching staff, but who

is responsible for that? The Government are generally responsible for it. Not a word has been said about the personnel in the Scottish Education Department. Inspectors have been taken away from the Department. I had one case of an inspector, a man skilled in foreign languages, who is in charge of a hospital. In my constituency I could name case after case of young qualified teachers. What are they doing? They are not teaching. I could give the cases of at least half a dozen teachers in Kirkintilloch who are qualified teachers, but have for several years been working in the moulding shops. Why cannot a census be taken by the Government to ascertain what is their teaching personnel at the present moment? I am satisfied that the right hon. Gentleman's Department would be astonished at the figures.
I wanted to see this evacuation scheme succeed, but I stand here to-night to say that it has been a shocking catastrophe. The figures which have been given by the Secretary of State for Scotland stated that 500,000 children were expected to be evacuated, and they followed by saying that only 34 per cent. were evacuated. At the end of his speech the right hon. Gentleman gave us those astonishing figures dealing with the city of Dundee, showing that 74 per cent. of the mothers and children who had been evacuated had returned. With regard to Edinburgh, the figure was 21 per cent. It may be that the proper explanation is that the children from Edinburgh were accommodated among people who were in a position of greater affluence than those from Dundee. Take Kinross, Nairne, Peebles, Inverness and Westlothian. The figure was 80 per cent. in those counties.
What do the Government intend to do to meet that position? Are they going to sit smug and complacent and allow these people to remain in the dangerous areas? What are the dangerous areas? I remember, on the Sunday when the war broke out, speaking on the Terrace to the Lord Advocate about this problem. I raised with him the question of Edinburgh and the City of Glasgow and pointed out that I could not understand why those cities could not have a balloon barrage. I told him that if you took a line from Wilhelmshaven you would go right over Edinburgh. He would not accept the suggestion I made. I have


discussed my views with the Secretary of State for Scotland in regard to Grangemouth and other places, in relation to the Forth and Kincardine Bridges. My hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Falkirk and I were looking at an aerial photograph reproduced from a German paper and taken by one of the German aviators who passed over the Forth Bridge only two weeks ago. It shows the docks at Grangemouth, the Imperial Chemical Works and the shadow factories in the district and yet that district is not a scheduled area.
The Germans were in Orkney the other day; was that scheduled as a danger area? They dropped eight bombs but killed one rabbit. Really, the way in which the Government are approaching this problem baffles my understanding, at any rate. I am satisfied that we shall require ultimately to adopt the suggestion which was made by one of my hon. Friends. If this war continues for any considerable period of time, no matter how kind and good-hearted people may be, they will not allow children to come and live with them indefinitely. This problem will inevitably have to be faced in the way that it should be, by inaugurating what we on this side of the House have advocated not since the war started but before the war started, namely, a system of camps, or something of that order, to give the people an opportunity of living their own lives in their own particular way. I hope the Government will realise that they have a very serious and definite responsibility in this matter. We are fighting a battle on the foreign front and we are fighting a battle every bit as important on the home front. Do not let it be said in years to come that we succeeded on the foreign front but failed on the home front.

8.21 p.m.

Mr. N. Maclean: The Secretary of State for Scotland, in his opinion and, I believe, in the opinion of those on the other side of the House, made a very satisfactory reply to the challenges which we have made. I am convinced, however, that if he had been speaking not to the House of Commons but before a gathering of the parents of the evacuated children in any constituency in the United Kingdom he would have found a much more critical audience amongst those

parents than he has found in this House this afternoon, because he would have found there the people who had the experience of the children having been evacuated, and he would also have found there the experience of people upon whom the children had been placed by the receptionists in the reception areas. I am also convinced, taking the whole thing into consideration, that from the very commencement there were no preconceived plans in existence in the files in any of the Government Departments. The matter was not considered properly; it was rushed at. All that was considered was dumping children from one town into another, which was asked to receive more children than there was either accommodation for in the houses or in the schools. Consequently, it was bound to break down at some time.
It is all very well to find fault with the cleanliness of some children, but I have in my pocket a letter about a particular case where the very opposite actually happened. A family, sent into a reception area, put up in a very decent house and were received and treated very well by an old lady. They lived there for eight or nine weeks and no complaints were made against the children; they were happy, they were cleanly and they were mannerly. The old lady who had taken them in fell ill and had to be removed to hospital. The children were sent down to another house in the same area and in that house it was they who received the vermin and not they who took the vermin with them. You get these cases happening all over; I notice that the Under-Secretary looks rather incredulous, but when I say "all over" I mean taking them by and large, because according to statements made in this House during previous discussions on this matter the general assumption seems to have been that it was only the evacuated children who were verminous and were carrying vermin into the reception areas. Had there been a proper evacuation plan conceived by the Government and put into operation those children would never have left the areas in the conditions some of them were in, particularly when in places like Glasgow they had to go back to school after two months' holiday with anything it might be possible to get in the areas in which they had spent their holiday.
I want to ask a question of the Under-Secretary who, I expect, will reply; the question has been put to me by others. What about the schools, particularly in Glasgow and industrial areas, where you have on both sides of the Clyde constituencies in a most vulnerable area in the sense that most of the shipyards are busily engaged in naval production, most of the engineering shops are engaged in naval work and the docks are full of ships that either take goods from this country or bring goods into this country in order to maintain the welfare of our people? It is an area which shows itself to be most vulnerable. Of course, the schools in Glasgow ought to be evacuated and the children taken away. One would have thought that they would be sent into safety areas. One school was sent down to another school which is only half a mile away from the largest explosives factory in Britain; that was a reception area, a "safe area." I am naming neither the place nor the name of the firm whose explosives factory is there. There is another case of a reception area at Glen-garnock where there is one of Colvilles steel factories. We are asked to darken our windows, are warned by wardens, fined by sheriffs and by justices of the peace, but Glengarnock can throw its light into the sky for 20 miles around. No one suggests that there should be a darkening down there or that anyone should be fined for throwing a glare into the sky. That is a steel manufacturing factory, manufacturing steel for armaments, plates for shipping, metal for guns, and so on. That is supposed to be a safe area and the children of Glasgow are evacuated to that region where the factory gives all the directions that need be given to enemy aircraft that come over.
The same thing happens with regard to Glasgow itself. We have a works there generally known as Dickson's Blazes. We are told it can be shut down in seven minutes, but in seven minutes the modern aeroplane can come a great distance. A modern aeroplane takes less than 10 minutes to go from Edinburgh to Glasgow; it merely requires working out on the distance which is only 40 miles. I am confident that Dickson's Blazes could not be darkened down in sufficient time. Just outside the boundary of Glasgow we have between Rutherglen and Cambuslang another steel works on the Clydeside, giving its light to any enemy

aircraft that comes over. These are supposed to be safety areas, although this does not apply to Dickson's Blazes because it happens to be within Glasgow.

Mr. Buchanan: It is not in Glasgow.

Mr. Maclean: It is in Gorbals, and Gorbals is in Glasgow. There is another matter to which I wish to refer. That is the absolute lack of planning by the Government for the evacuation of the children. I am discussing the scheme as it applies to the district that I know best. One would have thought that all the arrangements between the evacuation area and the reception area would have been completed properly, billets arranged and so on, before a school was evacuated. But one school in Glasgow goes down to the area in which it is to be billeted. Over 900 scholars go down with their teachers. When they arrive they find that other schools have taken up the billets that they should have had. This school has then to be scattered over a distance of 30 miles in order to accommodate the children for the night. I do not blame the Government for that, except for bad selection of the officials responsible for the billeting. No blame can be placed on the teachers or on the schools at the Glasgow end. They were asked to send their children down, they sent them, and that is what happened.
What is to be done now about the school children who have returned. Most of the Glasgow children are still running about the streets in Glasgow. The Under-Secretary asked one hon. Member, "What about the provision of the necessary shelters in the schools?" Only yesterday I saw one of the most stupid arrangements I have seen. In Glasgow two surface shelters, each to accommodate 50 people, are being built just outside a school which has no shelter at all, not even a sandbag. That school could accommodate 1,000 children. Why should you waste money putting up surface shelters outside a school, and leave the school unprotected? Who is responsible? Are not the Government providing the money? In that case, either there is lack of supervision or the Government must take the responsibility.

Captain McEwen: I do not know the nature of the shelter, but it may be that the shelter which is being built outside the school is better than anything that could be provided in the school itself.

Mr. Maclean: I have not only seen this shelter, but during the past few weeks I have been going round Glasgow examining shelters and air-raid defences all over the city, and I can state definitely that these surface shelters which have been put up are not as good a protection as the school building itself, as it stands, without any additional protection. There have been lack of shelters, lack of accommodation, bad planning for evacuation. You cannot blame the teachers; you cannot blame the parents; the receptionists, in the main, cannot be blamed. All this planning was done in a panic, in a moment of scare, under the fear that aeroplanes were coming over on the first day of the war. While that is excusable, it does not exonerate the Government from blame for not having made plans further back. It has been the foreign policy of this Government during the last six or seven years that has led us into the mess into which Europe is plunged to-day. That, of course, we cannot discuss on a question of this kind, except to point out that this position has come out of the Government's own policy.
What is the Under-Secretary or the Secretary of State going to do with regard to the schools and their reopening? The hon. Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. Cassells) pointed out that, even if the schools were opened to-morrow, it is optional on the parents to send their children to school or otherwise. That is no security. I know a Parliamentary constituency in Glasgow, running alongside the Clyde, close to the docks, with engineering shops all round it. There are 7,000 children in that constituency, running the streets and getting no education. You talk about certificates. How can those children get certificates when they are not being taught? I have been in schools in Glasgow and found them stripped of every piece of furniture necessary for the education of the children. Desks, seats and blackboards have been taken out, and practically only the bare walls of the classrooms are left. The children are running about the streets; the teachers are doing their best to draw up plans to teach the children in their homes. In many parts of Glasgow teachers have taken the children into their houses, and are giving tuition there. If that can be done, it is high time that something was done by the Government to provide education for those children

who are running loose in the streets. The parents would welcome something of that sort.
It has been stated that the cinemas are not protected any more than the schools. That is quite true, but the parents take the children to the cinemas. In the afternoons in Glasgow you will find queues of children waiting outside the cinemas for the children's matinees. Why cannot those children be in the schools? They would be just as safe in the schools as in most of the cinemas. I suggest that the Under-Secretary should try- to convince his chief of the absolute necessity of an early reopening of the schools. Three months have passed. Most of the children in Glasgow are without education, and the same thing applies to children in practically every town in Scotland. Three months loss of education, and nothing in the statement of the Secretary for Scotland to-day to suggest that at any very early date there will be a possibility of those children being accommodated in schools.
But if you open the schools in Glasgow what are you going to do with that part of Glasgow which is regarded as vulnerable—as more vulnerable than the rest of Glasgow? Take the Clydeside, with the docks and shipyards. The schools there are close to the riverside. According to the statement of the Secretary for Scotland, these schools would not be opened. They would be left with no teachers or scholars in them. Are the schools further back from that area. in Dowanhill and Garnethill to be reopened? You cannot open the schools in Shettles-ton, Parkhead and Whitevale, because they are right up against Beardmore's Forge. That is a vulnerable area like the riverside. What are you going to do with the children there? To which school are you going to send them? The whole scheme of your evacuation and of trying to carry on with getting the children out of so-called vulnerable areas into other areas has completely broken down. Do not try to put the pieces together again, because it is too badly broken to mend. Evolve a new and more workable scheme and one which you can fit in properly.
I am not very much in favour of camps for children particularly with winter coming on just now, but I remember seeing in Invergordon during the last war the hutments that were erected there for the dockyard men. It was a hutment


town, housing close upon 5,000 dockyard men. It was run up practically in a few months. Could not something like that be done for the children in the outskirts of Glasgow? Could not proper transport facilities be provided to take them out and to bring them back again? Your feeding arrangements in the evacuation area broke down and the medical inspection of the children broke down, but by adopting a scheme of that kind and building temporary schools around the area you would be able, at least, to solve part of the problem, even though it were necessary to do it for one class of school in the forenoon and another class in the afternoon, adopting the two-shift system for five days a week. At any rate, the children would be absorbing some education and would be kept off the streets.
Mention has been made of hospitals. We have a splendid hospital for tuberculosis patients outside Glasgow in a very healthy area. It is one of the finest and most up-to-date hospitals for the treatment of that terrible disease. When war broke out every patient was taken out of the hospital, and the children were sent to an island in the Clyde where they were put in a large house called the Garrison that had been vacant for many years. There was dampness in the house, which has stood there for over 100 years and has practically been empty for a large portion of that time. The hospital for tubercular diseases is standing vacant to-day. The beds are there, the nurses are there and most of the doctors are there. It has been idle for three months, and the tubercular patients were sent to a damp house where they have been for three months. That is another part of your plan which has broken down. The sooner you get together and bring forward some decent plans, not in a moment of panic, but with the application of some sanity, the sooner we shall be able to get out of the mess into which you have landed us and which has caused so much discontent in the country during the last three months.

8.44 p.m.

Mr. Woodburn: I do not propose to deal with the past but rather with the future. It is true to say that the figures which have been given to us by the Secretary of State for Scotland to-day of something like 175,000 people having been transferred from the town to the country

represents a feat not less commendable than the feat of transporting an Army of a similar number to France. When you look back and think that nearly 200,000 of the population could be uprooted from their homes and transported to the countryside, it is truly a remarkable feat, however much we may deplore the breakdown in one part or another. I have the good fortune to speak for a part of the country which has had a happy experience as far as the evacuation is concerned. Both Clackmannanshire, as the Secretary of State has noted, and Stirlingshire have had a very good record and happy experience as far as the children they have received are concerned. It ought to be said that no family is enthusiastic about receiving other families, and difficulties are bound to arise from congestion and from the normal difficulties of too many people being in a house. Nevertheless, on the whole, I have not received any complaints either of the children or of the evacuation in our area, and in general the people, though perhaps not enthusiastic, have been both patriotic and tolerant and have made the best of a bad job.
There is one aspect which I would like to commend to the Secretary of State regarding our evacuation, and it is one which is apt to be forgotten in these immediate difficulties. In Scotland, education is one of our staple industries. We export education from Scotland and have sent educated people all over the world, and I would like to keep that channel flowing freely if it is at all possible. Dollar Academy and Alloa Academy are examples, and in his own constituency there is a number of such schools that do not draw their pupils from the home population at all but from the Empire. Therefore, there will be a great injury to Scottish education if that channel is in any way choked during the war, and as far as possible pupils ought to be encouraged still to come to this country in order that the educational industry of Scotland could be stimulated and continued.
The question has arisen about what is a safe area. I represent an area which is receiving children. It is a safe area. But I have here one of the pieces of shrapnel which landed in that safe area, and I would suggest to the Secretary of State for Scotland, as did the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), that


there is no place in Scotland that is a safe area. Therefore, the question is not in deciding that some place is a safe area and some place is not, but in deciding how to spread the population in such a way that the smallest damage will be done if any bombardment takes place. In the same way, I hope that the Secretary of State for Scotland will take note of the fact that this shrapnel was found and that he will take steps to provide air-raid shelters or make some recompense to the people who have built them themselves.
There are one or two suggestions that I would like to make in regard to evacuation. One of the breakdowns in the past scheme was due to the fact that the evacuation took place through education authorities to county councils and not to other education authorities. I think that the right hon. Gentleman would find that his scheme would work far more smoothly if the children were passed from one education authority to the next education authority, and not to the county council, and that these education authorities should be made generally responsible for the success of the scheme. One difficulty is bound to arise in regard to the mothers and the children. I think that from figures of the Secretary of State we must realise that in most cases the mothers have gone back home. The idea of a wife being separated from her husband for three years raises tremendous problems. In many cases the wife is convinced that the husband will starve to death if she is not there to look after him, and in some cases the fact is that, out of the family income, so much goes to maintain the mother and the children in the reception area that actually there is not enough left for the husband who is working to feed himself at home.
In this connection I suggest to the Secretary of State that if there is any further question of evacuating mothers and small children, some arrangement must previously be made for the provision of canteens where the husbands can buy food at prices within the means which are left to them as the result of evacuation. I should like also to suggest, as has been suggested already, that the best way to deal with the mothers and the small children is to evacuate them not to long distances, but to safe areas near the towns. Scotland is fortunate in

having within short distance of Edinburgh and Glasgow hills which are very difficult places for aeroplanes to approach, and round about and in the midst of these hills there could be built great colonies, which are called camps, to which the mothers, the children, and the teachers could be evacuated, where normal education and life could be carried on in fairly reasonable safety, but with certain important qualifications. The fathers would be able at the weekend to walk to see the mothers and the children, and those fathers who have bicycles would be able to reach the children in the Pentland Hills from Edinburgh, and many other hills from Glasgow. If the mothers and the children were accommodated there in colonies, we should get rid of the whole problem of putting them into other people's houses, and we should have the possibility of contented evacuation, which would be fairly permanent, because it may last for three years. It is certain that if the wives and the children are to be transported 30, 40, and 50 miles from their homes, the system is bound to break down, as it has already done.
The choice that faces us in regard to air raids is either to dig ourselves into holes or to evacuate from the towns. The much wiser way is not to dig great holes in the ground, but to spend money wisely in building these camp colonies, which would not only be of service to-day but would remain a permanent service after the war. The subject of tuberculosis has been referred to. Dr. Williamson, a former Medical Officer of Health for Edinburgh, assures me that tuberculosis in Scotland could be wiped out if sufficient open-air accommodation was provided for the tubercular patient. If we built these colonies, and the hospitals to which the Secretary of State has referred, then, after the war is over, the colonies could be used to provide open-air hospitals for the tuberculosis cases, and we could take them out of the congested areas and perhaps remove that dread disease from our midst. They would provide another great benefit. The Educational Institute of Scotland already runs a great holiday camp for school children, near Stirling. That camp has been run voluntarily by the teachers, who go there and look after the children. The Lanarkshire County Council has also a great camp at Leadhills, which


has been extremely successful. The children go there every year very willingly in summer time. Such schemes have already been in practice to a limited extent elsewhere throughout Scotland.
If we think simply of the immediate problem, we might spend money like water and achieve no permanent purpose. It is wiser to take the long view and to build such colonies in the hills, which would provide health camps and hospitals, and would be of permanent service for the health of the population in years to come. Out of this dreadful business of slaughter there might emerge some permanent benefit to civilisation in our country, which give an opportunity for health which has not existed in the past.

8.55 p.m.

Mr. Robert Gibson: We have heard from the Secretary of State for Scotland a very interesting statement in regard to education and the cognate problem of evacuation. We have been reminded by the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. G. A. Morrison) that this is the second Debate on Scottish education in six weeks. Therefore, the statement by the right hon. Gentleman to-day was by way of being a progress report. Mistakes have been discovered, adjustments have been made, and an endeavour is being made, very earnestly, as I think all hon. Members recognise, to grapple with the very big problems that are presented. It must, therefore, have been rather disconcerting for the right hon. Gentleman to find that the only speech delivered in this Debate from a Member of his own political party was a very hot attack on the Government policy. It may be that the speeches that he has listened to from this side of the House may give him some assistance towards the solution of the problems that have emerged.
The speech from the other side of the House came from one of the Aberdeenshire Members, the hon. Member for Central Aberdeen (Sir R. W. Smith), and it recalled in a somewhat emphatic fashion a speech from another Aberdeenshire Member, which occupied a pretty prominent position in the earlier Debate. When I heard that earlier speech I was filled with sorrow and resentment, sorrow at the fact that certain unfortunate things emerged, and resentment at the atmosphere surrounding the speech. That

was reflected in the speech to-day that we listened to from the other side. On the previous occasion my reaction to the speech was somewhat anomalous, because although I am a Baptist, it brought to my mind the christening font in the Crypt below St. Stephen's Chapel, and the Latin inscription round the Crypt:
Sinite parvulos venire ad me et ne prohibetis eos talium enim est regnum dei.
I like the "parvulos" !"Permit the tiny wee tots to come to Me." That was my reaction to the speech of the hon. Member in the previous Debate. He brought in evidence the statement of an Anglican minister, which seemed utterly different from that inscription on the walls of the Crypt downstairs. I endeavoured at that time to catch Mr. Speaker's eye, because I felt a good deal of sympathy with the exasperation shown by my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan). I did not, however, catch Mr. Speaker's eye, and I am glad now that I did not succeed, because only last week I got another picture of quite a different kind. My wife was staying in a village among the hills of her native Ayrshire, and she received a call from the local parish minister, of course, a Presbyterian minister of the Church of Scotland. There were evacuated children in the village. The minister had several boys staying at the manse. He did not have much help, although he was a bachelor. He told my wife that he had to wash the children. My wife said, "Did you wash the children yourself?" The minister replied, "Certainly. They could not wash themselves."
I recommend that story, which is a true one, to the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire who has spoken to-night. I am sorry that he is not in his place. I hope he will pass it on to his colleague from Aberdeenshire who told us a very different kind of story in the previous Debate. The action of that Ayrshire Presbyterian minister was, in my submission, kindly and neighbourly, and a patriotic service on the part of a faithful minister of the Gospel. The hon. Member for Central Aberdeen seemed to be labouring under a misapprehension. He seemed to be speaking of the teachers as teachers in a public school who are house masters and consequently charged with duties that are of a domestic character. Teachers in our day schools in Scotland are not of that


character at all. I call to mind some of the houses in some of our cities—nay, in all our cities—where artificial light has to be on at all hours of the day, and if one is at all careful, one will find houses where there is a smell of paraffin oil. It is not used for lighting purposes but to try and kill the vermin which are in the very walls of the building. It is impossible to get rid of the vermin; that problem has been attacked in eloquent fashion by the hon. Member for Shettles-ton (Mr. McGovern) this evening.
May I pass to a different topic? It is my privilege to represent a constituency which is neither an evacuation area nor a reception area. It is a neutral area and I do not quite know why. On this topic I agree on all points with the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean). During the by-election which sent me to this House in the year 1936 I was very much impressed with the vulnerable character of my constituency. Yet it is classed as a neutral area, but because it is a neutral area some of these problems with regard to education present themselves in a less complicated form than they do elsewhere. It may be that because of their less complicated character they indicate more easily methods of solution. It has been pointed out by the Secretary of State that in neutral areas schools are to be reopened subject to adequate protection being available. As I understand it, a school that is reopened in a neutral area must therefore be a school which has passed the standard of safety so far as the Department is concerned. So far as my constituency goes, there appears to be adequate safety provisions in the newer secondary schools, but doubts are expressed with regard to some of the other schools. In particular the newer secondary schools have very good provision with regard to safety. I was speaking to the headmaster of a Catholic secondary school about a week ago, and he was thoroughly satisfied with the protection at his school. I learn that the same is true with regard to the high school.
But the question arises of alternative accommodation for school children. That question arose in the Debate on Thursday, and the right hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Lees-Smith) spoke about the conflict between the education authority and other departments for accommodation.

I submit that, so far as Scotland is concerned, education ought clearly to have priority. There is an historical reason for that. John Knox left one legacy to Scotland, the value of which cannot be in question. He saw to it that every parish had its school. There is, I submit, a correlative duty that where necessary in any area in Scotland, so far as accommodation for educational purposes is concerned, church premises, either the church hall or the church itself, ought to be available for the purposes of education. I can remember in my own school days in the '90s of last century the junior department of Hamilton Academy suddenly becoming uninhabitable through a sudden subsidence of the building, and the alternative accommodation which was at once available was in the parish halls. In another case there was a fire at one school, and the children were accommodated in a church. These are precedents, and I think that they should be kept in mind and that such accommodation should be made available where it is necessary.
During this war-time emergency I submit that we ought to insist that specialised school accommodation should not be diverted from its educational purpose. For example, science departments, art departments and manual instruction departments should always be available for these respective purposes. In this connection, in Greenock we have one special school which, unfortunately, has been taken possession of for air-raid precaution purposes. There are many educationists in Greenock who take an interest in this special school, and it has been put to me very forcibly by constituents in Greenock that it is most unfortunate that this special school has been taken for air-raid precaution purposes. I have been asked by several why a church hall is not made available, why it is not utilised for airraid precaution purposes, and this specialised school with its specialised equipment kept available for the children for whom it was designed and who most require it. I suggest to the Secretary of State that he should look into this matter of the special school at Greenock and see whether some other accommodation ought not to be available for air-raid precaution purposes. It seems to be an unjustifiable alternative use of highly specialised premises in this special school.
I do not wish to detain the House, but there are two other topics upon which I should like to touch. The point has already been raised by several hon. Members, and in particular by the hon. Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. Cassells), as to whether or not education is compulsory in the case of children in evacuation areas where there is school accommodation available. I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he should make it clear that, once school accommodation is available, the compulsory condition of our education subsists and emerges as soon as the accommodation is available. It should not simply be optional for children to go to school, or for parents to send their children to school. A really determined effort to get alternative accommodation should be made. I suggest very strongly that all our churches and church halls should be at once available for the purpose. It is most unfortunate that at this time churches should be used on Sunday mornings, and occasionally now on Sunday afternoons, and for the whole of the rest of the week should be closed and not available for educational purposes, which, so far as I can gather, was an historical use to which our ecclesiastical buildings were put.
The right hon. Gentleman said something about the war-time leaving certificate. There is a large number of students who have prepared themselves for Civil Service examinations. In one case, the Customs and Excise examination was in two parts. The first was taken in June or July, and the second was to have been taken in November but is not being taken. Could the right hon. Gentleman, in the interests of these students, get in touch with the Civil Service Commissioners and see whether something can be done to ensure that some of these candidates may be recruited into the Civil Service? During all this time there must be normal and in some cases abnormal recruitment going on, and the whole lives of these young people, which were devoted to these studies, should not be thrown away altogether. There is a very clear sense of grievance with regard to the matter, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will look into it, because my hon, Friend the Member for Clackmannan (Mr. Woodburn) was undoubtedly well founded when he said that education had always been, certainly since the days of

John Knox, one of the principal exports of Scotland, and it ought to remain so.
A point that ought to be emphasised is that the real solution of this evacuation problem must be sought on the lines of a communal system. A year ago I discussed this matter with a very distinguished citizen of Edinburgh, who had held a very high position and is a man of wide experience and very broad sympathies. Looking at the matter on broad lines, he said, "This country may be involved in war. We are now so vulnerable from the air that it will be necessary to evacuate the population. The only way to do it is on communal lines, to get the people out into the country." It will not do to get the population out as individuals, as has been done under the schemes of the Government. I quite understand that these schemes were rapidly prepared under the stress of an emergency, but there is the broad view that many thinking people have, and the sooner we get a grip of the problem along these lines the sooner shall we see real progress made in this very difficult work.

9.16 p.m.

Mr. Gallacher: I want to see the schools re-opened but I also want to see, with their re-opening, adequate protection for the scholars. In my constituency there is a village, Valleyfield, which is classed as a neutral area, yet it is within a stone's throw of the Forth Bridge and Rosyth. When the attack was made on the Forth Bridge the aeroplanes were right over the top of it. When there is an air raid the children have to run to their homes. Any who live at a distance have to be accommodated with some of the householders near the school. That is all that has been arranged as far as their protection is concerned. Nevertheless, it is desirable that education should go on. It is very necessary that something should be done for the protection of the schools. In the provision of shelter it is necessary to show some intelligence, and this is one quality which is obviously completely lacking so far as this Government and those who represent it are concerned. At North Queensferry they have built two public shelters right at the side of the Target-Forth Bridge. They could not have been placed in a more deadly and dangerous position. If a bomb misses the bridge and lands at the side of it, the


mothers and children who are sheltering are all caught. It shows an utter lack of intelligence.
I have heard some remarks about carrying on the education of the children by making camps. I am not very concerned about this question of making camps. If you go back into the history of Scotland you can read of the Highland clearances and other clearances. The people who had castles and big mansions were able to clear the common people from the land. Now, when we are facing such an emergency, it is about time that we began a clearance of another kind. There is not an area round about any city but where there are mansions of one kind or another which could easily be used as educational centres. There are magnificent institutions, houses and mansions around Glasgow and Edinburgh. Who is occupying them?

Mr. Colville: Does the hon. Member suggest that you would house 75,000 people in houses of that character?

Mr. Gallacher: I am talking of educating the children. There has been talk of building huts around Glasgow and Edinburgh for the purposes of education. Why should we build huts when there are mansions of all kinds. Go around the outskirts of Glasgow or Edinburgh and see the magnificent houses, where children could be taken to be educated. Why should we not clear the families out of these large houses and use them for this purpose? Go round about the Clyde area, go into the Highlands round the Firth of Clyde and you will see magnificent houses where the children could be educated. Why should we not use those houses?
Of course, when this question of evacuation is discussed we must remember that it is only the workers who are to be affected. The other people can evacuate themselves. We had an exhibition of that in the very first days of the war and of how they blocked the railways getting away. But anything is good enough for the workers. That is the basic idea and that is what is at the bottom of the breakdown of evacuation. Some Members say that the people who have been evacuated have been very well treated and very well looked after, that is true in general but a number of

cases have come to me this morning, showing the appalling conditions under which women and children have been placed. I have sent those cases to the Minister and he can look into them. I would be in favour of taking over all the large houses round the cities in order to accommodate the children or to provide them with educational facilities.
I would also direct attention to the fact that education in many areas is completely stopped. Our education system is in process of being destroyed. This is another example of the destructive power of monopoly capital. It destroys all round it. We have had the burning of the books in Germany, but consider the parallel between the burning of the books in Germany and the closing of the schools and the destruction of education in this country. It has often been remarked with a certain bitter cynicism that more is spent on the means for blowing out brains than on the means for educating brains. That was never truer than it is to-day. I make this proposition, to which Members here cannot object. If civilisation is to live and advance, it is more important that the children should be educated than that the slaughter of humanity should continue. No exception I am sure will be taken to that proposition. I suggest, then, if it is a question of education or war, we should stop the war and open the schools. I think that is worth considering if we are at all concerned with education and the advance of civilisation.
Let me come to the question of evacuation. Some terrible stories have been told in connection with evacuation on one side and the other, but the whole character of evacuation has been affected, simply because the Government never gave serious consideration to the question beforehand. That was due to the fact, as I have already said, that it was only the working class who were to be evacuated and that anything is good enough at any time for the working class. Time and again, I and other Members here urged the necessity of experimenting with evacuation. Here was a problem which was liable to arise and about which nobody knew anything. Repeatedly I put questions to the Home Secretary on the necessity of making experiments. I remember the Under-Secretary, now Secretary for Mines, asking me what I meant by an experiment in evacuation. I wrote


a letter to the Home Secretary endeavouring to explain what I meant and the Home Secretary said from that Box that it was not possible to make experiments. He said that an experiment on a small scale would be of no use and that an experiment on a large scale would cause too much disorganisation. So, nothing was done to prepare and no attempt made to get an understanding of the problem of how these thousands of working-class children and mothers were to be protected. But who on the Government benches is interested in them? The Government's idea is, I repeat, that anything is good enough for working-class women and children. That is why there were no experiments. Had this been a matter affecting Members on the other side of the House the experiments would have been made no matter what the cost was.
What are we getting now as a result of the absence of experiment and preparation? I remember in the old days the anti-Socialists used to try to frighten the lives out of people by telling them that Socialists were out to break up homes. What is monopoly capitalism doing now. Is it not breaking up homes? I should say it is. Was there any need to break up homes? None. If the problem had been faced from the point of view of protecting the interests of the working class, the homes could have been saved. If adequate preparation had been made the evacuation could have been carried out in such a way as to give the maximum of protection to the people and to their homes. To-day, homes are being broken up and children are being sent away long distances from their parents. Not only are their mothers not with them, but every effort is made to prevent the mothers visiting them. The question has been raised in this House on two or three occasions and when questions have been put to Ministers about cheap fares, and so forth, to enable mothers to visit the children, we have been told that it is not desirable that the mothers should visit the children. Hon. Members who support the Government, and especially the cavemen up at the back, have declared that it is not desirable, and that it disturbs the children and leaves them discontented and dissatisfied. Therefore, their whole desire is to discourage the mothers from coming into contact with their children. That is really a breaking up of the whole spirit of the home, and that

situation exists now because no real consideration was given to the problem, and no preparations and experiments of any kind were carried out.
We have to consider not only the effect upon education and upon the homes, but the sufferings of the children because they are parted from their mothers and fathers, and the sufferings of the mothers and fathers because their children have gone; and we have also to remember the position of the fathers when the mothers and children have gone. I was having a cup of coffee over the road one evening, and a young man was sitting at the same table. I have never seen a more miserable specimen in my life. I had not been there long before he spoke to me, and I found out that his wife and two children were away somewhere in the country, and he was desolate and hopeless. There is a great deal of that. In education and the breaking up of their homes, the workers have already paid a terrible price for a war that is none of their business, although it is nothing to what they will have to pay later on. So I declare here that those who are interested in the working class will be prepared to fight by every means in their power to stop the war, to advance education, and to restore the homes of the people of this country.

9.31 p.m.

Mr. Mathers: I am sure it will be agreed on all sides that we have had a very interesting Debate. I question whether we have got full value out of it, owing to the fact that we staged the Debate in order to discuss the questions of education and evacuation, and we have so linked these two things together that we have kept them running parallel in our minds all the time, and that has coloured the whole discussion; whereas if we had taken the opportunity of discussing education and evacuation separately, I feel sure that we should have had a considerably better Debate. The Debate began in a London fog, and I am very anxious indeed that it should not finish, so far as I am concerned, in a Scottish mist.
I do not intend to deal to any extent with the question of education. My hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Falkirk (Mr. Westwood), who opened the Debate, made some very useful observations on that subject, and he made the important suggestion that a conference


should be held of all those in Scotland who are charged with duties and responsibilities in relation to education. I am sure that the points which have been made in the Debate since my hon. Friend spoke have emphasised the need for such a conference to take place. I believe that all those points could be solved by the consultation which such a conference would provide, and it would indeed mean that we should get fairly near to the home rule which so many of us desire to see established for Scotland. We should be discussing in Scotland things relating to Scottish affairs, and in consultation, instead of having these things dictated to us by a Government Department, we should have them solved by a reasonable discussion, meeting all the points involved and having those points met by those who are in daily contact with them, and therefore best able to discuss them in a practical way. I believe that such a conference would serve a very useful purpose. My hon. Friend the Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) has made reference to certain matters which cause me to say that there is one conference, of course, which could very well supersede a conference such as my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Falkirk has suggested; that is to say, a conference that would be dealing, not with the problems arising out of the war, but the problem of disposing of the war itself and getting it out of the way. We are bound at some time to come to such a conference, and I am very anxious to see us come to it before we spend more of the life and wealth of this country in an armed struggle, as we shall if there is not a lead given for the holding of this conference at a very early time.
With regard to evacuation, I have been interested to hear Member after Member indicating whether he represented a sending area, a neutral area or a reception area. The county I represent was first classified as a neutral area in certain parts and as a reception area in other parts. Since we had the first big air raid on the Firth of Forth there has been added another description to the area, and part of it has become a sending area. I, therefore, represent all types of area. I am keen to press home the point that has been made so strongly by the South Queensferry Town Council to the Secretary of State that there ought to be further

consideration of the question of evacuation from that most vulnerable area. The latest urge that has been made to the Secretary of State is that mothers of school children as well as children of pre-school age should be evacuated. Since that air raid took place there have been endeavours to get it agreed by the parents that school children should be evacuated to safer areas. A certain number have taken advantage of the facilities offered, but there is a problem, which is the problem of the mother in the home to a great extent. She does not want to be separated from her children, and therefore the suggestion has been made that the mother should go with the children. Some school children are retained at home and are not allowed to be evacuated because of the help they can give in the home with the younger children. The mother with the growing family finds, if she allows the school children up to 10, 11 and 12 to be evacuated, that she is left with the small children, thus having the burdens of running the home greatly added to.
The Secretary of State has not seen fit to agree to the further pressure that has been brought to bear upon him by the South Queensferry Town Council, and I ask him not to close his mind to the ideas that have been put forward by the town council. He is well enough acquainted with the Bible to remember the story of the evacuation of Sodom and Gomorrah. Before certain evacuation took place from Sodom and Gomorrah he will remember how peradventure there would be 50—my hon. Friend the Member for Coat bridge (Mr. Barr) would be better able to finish the quotation than I am—and they got down in that peradventure to a very small number. I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he also tries in his peradventure to get down to a small number. He will be very sorry to find in the days that lie ahead, if the war unfortunately continues and develops, that any action of his had prevented the evacuation from South Queensferry and that area of any who could have been by any means provided for as evacuees.
The problem of evacuation is a considerable one. There is far more to it than merely the official evacuation which was arranged by Government agency. I find myself much interested in voluntary evacuation. I have regretted to find how very rigidly the Government have adhered


to their arrangements and given recognition only to officially evacuated children and others. At the end of September there were on the rolls of the schools in the county of Linlithgow 706 pupils who had been privately evacuated into the county. That is very considerably more than the number of children evacuated under the Government scheme. I cannot give the figures for that, because I cannot get them, but taking into account the numbers of mothers with young children, expectant mothers, children of school age and children of pre-school age, the total number evacuated officially into the county of Linlithgow was 963. Before the end of September I am quite certain that the total number did not stand as high as the 706 children actually attending the county schools who had been voluntarily evacuated. In dealing with this point I have had in hand with the Secretary of State for Scotland the case of certain privately-evacuated persons who, I thought, ought to have had more consideration than has been shown to them up to the present. In order to make the position perfectly clear perhaps I may read a report which I have with regard to two cases which I want to state to the House and again to press upon the attention of the Secretary of State for Scotland. The report says:
On Friday, 1st September, the first day of evacuation, a mother with four children, the oldest seven years of age, arrived from Edinburgh at her mother's home in this burgh. Not only did she come from an evacuable city, but she came to a reception area for that city, although had she reported at her nearest school she would have been sent to Jedburgh or Hawick, and would have been one of those unwanted mothers who created serious problems for billeting officers.
That is an expression of opinion to which we need not pay too much attention to-night.
Her case was considered sympathetically in the receiving area. It was recognised that this was the most natural and likely to be the most satisfactory type of billeting, and, moreover, in issuing a form entitling the householder to the regulation payments no known instructions communicated to billeting officers prior to evacuation were being infringed or contravened. Both parties involved are in poor circumstances…The father of these evacuee children is serving with the Army. The billeting officer has now been informed, however, that such billeting was irregular, and has carried out his instructions to cancel the form issued under a misapprehension and to instruct the parties that they must now return to the danger zone from which they came, report at the nearest school

to be officially registered and officially sent out, or private arrangements must be made between the parties concerned. Both alternatives are now out of the question, because, in the first place, in the next evacuation only the one child of school age able to travel unaccompanied will be eligible, and poverty precludes the second. The bona fides of the parties concerned are not called in question, but it appears the Department concerned is not prepared to have such cases officially investigated and regularised at the reception end.
That position still persists. I am told in a further report that the householder and the evacuees are in straitened circumstances and only self-denial and sacrifice on the part of all have made existence possible without Government assistance. There is a case where people came from an evacuation area and went into a reception area, with no trouble whatever to the officials concerned with the Government scheme. They made arrangements for themselves comparable to what could have been made by the Government, and I think that in the circumstances they ought to have had their position recognised and the appropriate billeting allowance paid.
Here is the second case. Again I read from the report:
A second typical case in this area is that of an expectant mother, accompanied by a child, who arrived on Sunday, 3rd September, from Leith. Had she entrained with the official school party she would have gone to strangers who would have been confronted soon with the complications of her condition. She came to her aunt's, to have the care necessary under the circumstances, but officialdom has decreed that the recognition, given on sympathetic grounds, being unofficial, must be withdrawn, and that this expectant mother must make her private arrangements with the aunt or, alternatively, return to the city.
The subsequent letter relating to these matters states:
Arrangements for the event, expected at the end of December, have been made here. as the aunt has insisted upon her remaining in the country, even although her own husband is unemployed and no part of the expense is borne by the Government.
There are clear indications that there should be more consideration given to such cases than has been given up to the present time. The cases in which real hardship arises should be more sympathetically considered than they have been by the right hon. Gentleman. When similar questions were raised with the Minister of Health, in the English Debate on evacuation, he seemed to give a more


sympathetic hearing to cases of the kind. I believe that if the Minister of Health in England and our own Secretary of State were to approach the matter in the right way we could have it arranged that where hardship arose these billeting allowances could be made.

Mr. Colville: The hon. Gentleman has said that the Minister of Health has given sympathetic consideration. My hon. Friend will deal with that question of consideration when he replies but, in order to prevent misunderstanding, I ought to point out that such cases are not being paid in England at the present time.

Mr. Mathers: I do not want at all to overstate the case. I recognise that the Secretary of State was entitled to make his interjection, but I did not claim that the Minister of Health said that he was making these payments. I did not say that he was making the payments but that he gave a rather more sympathetic answer to the plea that was made to him along that line than the Secretary of State for Scotland has given in this matter. The only point I am making is that, between the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland, they might be able to squeeze the Treasury to the extent of getting such a billeting allowance made.
Here is another case, of which I am sure there must be many. It is that of a child of five evacuated from the Edinburgh area to the Kelso district. The home to which it went was 4½ miles from the school, and for a child of five to make that journey to school was considered by the parents to involve a hardship on the child and to be too much for it. They brought the child home to Edinburgh and sent it to the county of Linlithgow. No billeting allowance is being made, although the child is in a better position in a place which is more suitable. Simply because the arrangement has been made privately no billeting allowance is made. Better consideration should be given than is the case at the present time. We should take into account that payments have to be made where there are private arrangements for the billeting of the child in the reception area. With regard to those children who were in the areas, it may be on holiday, prior to the outbreak of war, it was suggested that instead of sending them back

to their home areas in order that they might be officially evacuated they should stay where they were because they were already in reception areas. I think that was a very sensible plan, but where you have side by side in the same village children who were not officially evacuated to that extent receiving the billeting allowances and the others who had made private arrangements a day or two later, it does create that feeling of hardship in the minds of those who are denied allowances.
I wonder if any complaint has been made to the Secretary of State about the amount paid in respect of billeting allowances. I have had only one complaint of this kind, and it was from a housewife in one of the villages in my constituency who had four children billeted. She told me that the 8s. 6d. per head per week allowed in respect of those four children left her 6s. per week out of pocket on food alone, and she was doing all the work in connection with the children for nothing. I would be glad to hear any comments that the Under-Secretary cares to make upon that particular point.
There is a point which has not been touched upon in this Debate to-day. I refer to the opportunities that are being provided for parents to visit their children in the reception areas, and especially the railway fares that are to be charged for those visits. It seemed to be a matter of importance when the announcement was made that facilities would be given under a complicated system of vouchers for the parents to visit their children, and it was made to appear that a very great concession was made by introducing a system of single fares for double journeys. No vouchers are necessary and no special arrangements are necessary by any Government Department to get special cheap single fares for the double journey; that can always be obtained, at least in normal times. I am not saying it can be done at the present moment. There is a normal arrangement for parties of eight travelling together, and you could always get a party of eight to travel from a sending area to a reception area to see their children.
As I heard the announcement made of single railway fares for double journeys and thought what those single fares would mean to many of the people who would try to take advantage of them,. I realised


that it would be impossible for those people to afford those particular fares. There are many scales of railway charges for passengers that fall far below single fares for double journeys. The very kind of journeys that are desired to be made in these times for this purpose could be provided under what is known as the half-day excursion arrangement. I am certain that that would enable far more of those parents to make the journeys to see their children, and I am also sure that without over-taxing the railway companies in respect of the accommodation that they would be required to provide, it would pay them to make the concession of giving those half-day excursion fares instead of adhering to anything like the single fares for the double journeys. At the present time we consider we are using the railways for national purposes. This would be a good national purpose for which to use the railways; and I feel justified in pressing upon the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Transport the desirability of going back to the railway companies and asking them to give a better travel bargain to the parents who wish to visit their children.
This Debate has been a somewhat omnibus one. I should like to end by asking whether it is possible for an answer to be given now on a matter that I raised in the Debate on the Scottish Health Estimates on 20th July last year? It is time this point was cleared up. I pointed out on that occasion that the county council of Fife were denying to clerks— and I was particularly concerned about railway clerks—the lower standard rents for local authority houses, on the ground that clerks of any kind were not members of the working class. I looked upon that as a very serious slight upon myself, and felt indignant that it should be said that clerks were not members of the working class. I fail to understand how it is that the Fife County Council cannot be brought by the Scottish Office to see reason, how it is that it cannot be brought home to the Fife County Council that clerks are members of the working class and are entitled to the concessions in respect of house rents that are given to the working class. I hope that the Under-Secretary will be able, at long last, to give me a reply on that point. We have had a very interesting Debate, and we shall listen with great interest to what the Under-Secretary has to say in reply to it.

9.58 p.m.

Captain McEwen: I agree with the hon. Member, as I am sure we all must, that this has been both an interesting and an omnibus Debate. During the years in which I have been a Member of this House I have always enjoyed Scottish Debates, but I confess that I used to enjoy them more when I was sitting on the back benches than I do at this moment. A great many points have arisen from the speeches that have been made. I should like to start by dealing with some of the points raised by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Mathers). He brought up a point which he raised more than a year ago, about lower rents for local authority houses in the county of Fife. All that I am able to tell him is that we are fully informing ourselves on this matter, that it is, in fact, in course of negotiation, that it is true that there has been some delay in coming to a decision, but that it is hoped that at an early date he may hear more on this matter.

Mr. Mathers: Would it be possible for the Under-Secretary to go to the length of saying whether he agrees with my contention?

Captain McEwen: No, Sir, I am afraid that on this occasion it would not be possible to go even as far as that. As regards the question, which also came up, of cheap fares for parents of evacuated children who are paying visits, I do not think it is necessary to detail to the House the arrangement which has been come to in this matter, but the hon. Gentleman mentioned the question of the single fare for the double journey, and said that if several parents, say, eight or nine, were to collect together, they could go at a much cheaper rate than merely by paying single fare for the double journey. This single fare can be obtained only for a limited number of stations, even in normal times, and these stations are not included in the arrangements. The arrangements as they stand are, it is true, somewhat complicated, but such as they are, they are put forward in consultation with the Ministry of Transport as an experiment. Great attention will be paid to the results of the experiment, as to how many parents avail themselves of it, and how they find that it works in practice; following these, further steps will be taken. I need only mention one point, that trips to the more distant


parts, which might require a journey overnight, raises a question of considerable difficulty and would require to be considered in consultation with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Transport.

Mr. Westwood: In all the arrangements that are being made for the purpose of parents visiting the children, will the hon. and gallant Gentleman see to it that there is co-ordination between the railway companies and road transport authorities? In a city like Inverness parents have to go miles out into the rural districts for the purpose of seeing their children, and unless there is co-ordination, there will be nothing but grumbling, complaints, and irritation.

Captain McEwen: Yes, Sir. The first journey which is being undertaken is, in fact, from Edinburgh to Inverness, and the road transport part of the journey has been taken into account. The hon. Member also brought up the question of private evacuation. Here again, this is a question of considerable complexity. A very large number of persons in what are called the priority classes have been evacuated privately, and the question is often raised why billeting allowances have been paid for such persons, and it is argued, as I think the hon. Member argued to-night, that it is much better that evacuated persons should go and stay with friends where they are welcome than be billeted with strangers. The answer is that when the Government evacuation scheme was being planned, it was necessary to assume that in Scotland alone, as my right hon. Friend has already mentioned in this Debate, anything up to 400,000 persons would have to be moved in emergency conditions from the sending areas, and it would have been impossible for transport authorities to take each family to the particular spot in the receiving area where they happened to have friends. Accordingly it was necessary to offer persons in the priority classes the alternative either of joining in the scheme and receiving the benefit of billeting allowances, coupled with being billeted with strangers, or staying out of the scheme and making their own arrangements. Obviously it would be unfair to these persons who could have gone to friends but chose to join in the scheme if we gave the benefit

of billeting allowances to those who evacuated privately. That, in broad lines, is the case which the Government put forward. As the hon. Member said, and rightly, though I say it with hesitation, he possibly may have received from the Minister of Health a more friendly reception than he has received from other Ministers. If that be the case, it only shows that the matter is not being lost sight of. If he can find satisfaction in that assurance, he is very welcome to do so.

Mr. Mathers: I limited my request to consideration being given in cases where hardship arises.

Captain McEwen: That point will be noted. One of the other questions which the hon. Member brought up was the evacuation from Queensferry and Inver-keithing. Arrangements were first made for the evacuation of accompanied school children, and the numbers which have gone up to date are 106 from South Queensferry, 44 from North Queensferry and 55 from Inverkeithing. Subsequently, the question of evacuating free schoolchildren and mothers was raised, on 8th November. The Department had a meeting with the representatives of the sending and the appropriate receiving areas, namely, West Lothian and Fife. It was decided that the areas should find out how many sending areas were willing to send children under three years and how many mothers wanted to be evacuated with these young children. The point is that agreement cannot be given to the idea of the evacuation of mothers with school children. This was allowed in the original scheme, but it was one of the main difficulties of that scheme, as has been mentioned in this Debate. The numbers up-to-date who have registered for evacuation from South Queensferry are very small. They are 12 mothers and 25 school children. That is going back to the somewhat startling simile which the hon. Member produced about the evacuation of Sodom and Gomorrah, and one might say that they are similar at least in the smallness of the numbers.
I should like to deal with one of the main questions that has been raised, that of the reopening of schools. The opinion has been pretty generally expressed that hon. Members would like to see the schools reopened. My right hon. Friend in his opening remarks put the matter


very clearly as to what was being done and as to the object aimed at by the Government in this regard. The object aimed at by the Government is to have the schools reopened at the earliest possible moment, but there are two provisions to be taken into account—the provision of adequate shelter where possible, and that the school should not be in a particularly dangerous area. That is the Government's policy, and it seemed to me that some hon. Members, in particular the hon. Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. Cassells), were pressing at an open door when calling upon the Government to do what in fact they are doing extremely hard at the present time.
The other point raised in that connection was the question whether the obligation should be placed on parents to send their children to school, or whether it should be left optional. I was somewhat surprised that many hon. Members on the opposite side of the House seemed to think that the obligation should not be laid upon the parents. On the contrary, it seems to me that it is the parent's responsibility. He is informed of the risk, and surely it is up to him to decide, as head of the family, whether the child should or should not go. It seems to me that it would be placing a great deal too much on the parent to tell him that he is forced to send his child to school in any case, whatever he might think the risks were.

Mr. Woodburn: Is that the opinion of the Under-Secretary in regard to billeting? Would it be possible to get voluntary billeting?

Captain McEwen: It refers to what I was actually speaking about and must not be taken to refer to any other subject. A number of points were raised by the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. G. A. Morrison). He spoke about the requisitioning of school buildings. At the end of August the Secretary of State delegated to county council and town clerks the power to requisition premises for the purpose connected with evacuation schemes. Only 35 requisition notices have been served by town clerks, of which 19 are still in force, and some premises in respect of which notices were served were found to be no longer required. This does not include a number of schools which have been requisitioned, in whole or in

part, by the Civil Defence Authority and the Service Departments. A second point to which the hon. Member referred was the reopening of junior instructional centres. Under recent emergency legislation education authorities have been relieved of the obligation to provide junior instructional centres for unemployed juveniles. The question of reopening such centres is one for the local education authorities. The Minister of Labour would not place any obstacle in the way of reopening any of the pre-war centres if the education authority were of the opinion that the reopening of any of these centres was desirable, and the Minister of Labour would pay the normal grant in respect of any centres which might be reopened. This represents the attitude of the Ministry of Labour as regards junior instructional centres which existed before the war. Any proposal to establish new centres which would necessitate building operations would require careful consideration, but as regards the reopening of centres established before the war, education authorities have full discretion and no difficulties will be raised, I understand, by the Minister of Labour.
Then there is the question of the school-leaving certificate. This is a very complicated question, and I will only say that the Department have held two conferences with the Scottish Universities Entrance Board, and have arranged, subject to the approval of the universities, that estimates of a pupil's proficiency in the required subjects shall be supplied by the Department to the board and accepted by them for the purpose of deciding his fitness to enter a university. It will therefore be unnecessary for the pupils of schools which regularly present for the senior leaving certificate to sit for the preliminary examinations conducted by the four university centres in the spring. As soon as the scheme for the proposed senior leaving certificate, war time, has been finally adjusted, the Department will approach the examining bodies which recognise the senior leaving certificate and arrange to supply them with similar information regarding pupils' attainments, if they consider that the information given on the war-time certificate is insufficient for their purpose. The Entrance Board have informed the Department that this arrangement has been accepted by all four universities.
A great many points have been raised in the course of the Debate, and if I do not reply to all, I can assure hon. Members that they will be carefully noted by the Department. The question of alternative billets has been mentioned and also the question of camps and mansion houses. The hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) raised that matter, and I may perhaps lay that particular ghost. According to the survey which was made in the case of large houses, those available last February would have accommodated about a tenth of the priority classes. Many of these have now been taken for hospitals, evacuation purposes, and military quarters, so that the contribution which large houses could make has been greatly decreased.

Mr. Gallacher: The suggestion was that round about Glasgow or Edinburgh huts of some kind should be built for educating the children and transport provided.

Captain McEwen: Having laid one of the hon. Member's ghosts, I now proceed to lay the other. There is a number of reasons why huts cannot be built. There are the questions of climate, of material and of cost. I can assure the hon. Member that the matter has been considered and that at this very moment there are five camps in the course of construction. I need not specify where they are, but it is hoped that one, at any rate, will be complete before the end of the year and that the other four will be ready by the Spring. But these camps are capable of holding only 350 children each. The hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean) spoke of having seen during the last war a camp which housed 5,000. That was a very exceptional case, and the difficulties, especially in the matter of material and so on, in 1914 were not the same as the difficulties that we are faced with now. But even if we had a camp which would house 5,000, we still have to remember that there are 75,000 children to be accommodated.
The hon. Member for Govan kept on accusing the Government in very strong terms of having fallen into this evacuation plan and of having made no plans whatever beforehand. The fact is that the survey was made in January and February of this year, and in April every receiving authority knew the maximum

number of persons to be sent into its area; in no case was more than that number sent. In May and June the Department discussed the detailed plans with the receiving authorities. The Department have been advised throughout by an advisory committee on evacuation, representing the local authorities, the teachers, and women's voluntary associations. So that the statement that there was no plan is, I fear, an untrue one.
The other question was with regard to dangerous and non-dangerous areas. I do not think I need be drawn into discussing this interesting and debatable question. It is one which could be used at a debating club with advantage. I still am not convinced that an area which has received a shell fragment is a dangerous area. A great part of my own constituency in East Lothian has appealed to me at one time or another precisely on those grounds, to be regarded as a dangerous area. But, believe me, there is a great difference in degree of danger between a place where a fragment of shell, or even a spent machine-gun bullet falls in the street—they always seem to fall on the police station—and a place which is liable to be deliberately bombed from the air. One is rightly counted as being a dangerous area and the other is not; and I think that differentiation stands. As I say, I had better not be drawn any further into that interesting discussion, although it certainly holds out many opportunities for debate.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) has also left, but it is growing late. He made what I thought was an exceedingly fair speech about the evacuated children question. It has been debated in the House more than once, and I trust this is the last time we shall have to mention it. The hon Member talked of homes being invaded; on the other hand, he pointed out the reasons why, owing to housing conditions and so forth, these children, in some cases, were in no fit state to be billeted on other people. But when he said that they were looked down upon for their lack of culture, I thought he had forgotten his very fair opening passage. Let me say, once and for all, before we leave the subject, that it was not from any reasons of culture, or any superior attitude on the part of the unfortunate people who had such children billeted upon them, that there were any com-


plaints to be made. We know perfectly well—it is not necessary to go into the matter—what the behaviour of some of these children was. It was not merely their condition of dirt but their behaviour which deeply shocked a great many people in the country districts of Scotland, and I think it only fair to point out that fact.
The evacuation scheme, handicapped by the impending shadow of unpredictable events, has undoubtedly constituted a lesser earthquake in the social life of Scotland. While I do not wish to minimise the hardships suffered by those families in which parents had to be parted from their children and in many cases are still parted from them in the sending areas, yet I think a special tribute is due —and a tribute has been paid already by the hon. Member who opened the Debate and by my right hon. Friend and others —to those in the receiving areas who so generously took in these children when asked to do so. In some cases, we must admit, it was a genuine hardship for them and worse than a hardship. As in the classic complaint of Othello:
But there where I have garnered up my heart;
Where either I must live, or bear no life…
to be discarded thence.
That was the hardest thing to bear for many when the homes which they had tended with infinite care for many years were broken up and destroyed and defiled. That was a very great hardship, and to those people we ought to pay a great tribute. But let us not forget that in olden days the customary adjective for the Scot was "kindly." The "kindly Scot" used to be spoken of. We have seen, not without: pride, that this noble and eminently Christian quality of kindliness is just as conspicuous among our people to-day as it ever was in times gone by.

Sir R .W. Smith: I raised a point with regard to the training of children. As nothing has been said by the Under-Secretary with regard to that point, am I to assume that the Government do not consider it is a question which requires attention?

Captain McEwen: No, Sir, certainly not. My hon. Friend need not think that because this point has not been touched upon, it is not under consideration. It is, and it is a point that will be borne in mind.

LEAGUE OF NATIONS (COUNCIL AND ASSEMBLY).

10.26 p.m.

Mr. Wander: Although the hour is somewhat late, I make no apology for raising a matter about which I gave notice at Question Time one day last week, and which interests a number of hon. Members and the country. I refer to the question of the forthcoming meeting of the Council and Assembly of the League of Nations, which appears to have been postponed. I am making these remarks more in a spirit of inquiry than any thing else, because I well appreciate the great difficulties that stand in the way of a meeting at the present time. I do not intend to say anything about the past. The attitude taken up by the Opposition in regard to the behaviour of the Government during the last few years concerning the League of Nations is on record, for it has often been expressed, and we do not wish to withdraw from it; but there is no point at the present time in making any reference to it. I may be permitted perhaps simply to remark that if all the nations which are signatories to the Covenant of the League had sincerely carried out their obligations under the Covenant, this war would never have taken place.
I fully appreciate the weak position of the League at the present time, its lack of authority and the difficulties which undoubtedly exist in having meetings of the Council and Assembly; but while there are difficulties, they are not necessarily difficulties for this country alone. I can well conceive a situation arising in which there might be considerable embarrassment for some countries other than Great Britain. After all, it was always intended that the League should function during the progress of a war. There is nothing novel about that, and we must regard it as a normal event. What I ask the Government to do is to use to the very utmost the possibilities of the position, which still exist, and I am sure that they are considerable. I do not know whether it would be possible, but what I should like to see would be a meeting of the Assembly at which the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, without proposing any resolution or doing anything that would cause a vote or a controversy, would make a clear statement to the world, on the lines of the noble utterances to which he has accustomed us


during the last month or so in broadcast and other speeches, stating the international purposes for which this country has gone into the war. I venture to think that by that means we could add very considerably to the moral support throughout the world which our cause deserves. If the Foreign Secretary were not able to go, I suggest that the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, who is a very acceptable personality there and who well knows the technique, would be a suitable person to go there and make a speech on those lines.
I hope that the Government will not dismiss the possibility at some stage of the war of a speech of that kind being made. I was interested to see a communication, which was published in reply to a question of mine last week, made by the British Government on 9th September to the League of Nations, in which they indicate their attitude. I will read one passage because it indicates the sympathetic attitude which the Government are endeavouring to show towards the League, in some measure, at any rate. It says this:
On the 23 rd May last Viscount Halifax made, on behalf of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, a statement to the Council of the League of Nations concerning the obligations which His Majesty's Government had felt constrained to undertake in pursuit of pacific and well-defined ends. He explained that one principle was common to these obligations, namely, resistance to the imposition of solutions by the method of force, which, if continued, must result in reducing civilisation to anarchy and destruction. He added that everything that His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom had done was in conformity with the spirit of the Covenant.
I am now directed by Lord Halifax to state that on the 1st September last the German Government committed an act of aggression against a member of the League of Nations."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th November, 1939; col. 684, Vol. 353.]
It goes on in detail to justify the course which we have taken. Apart from the particular purpose which I have suggested, there are certain business reasons why a meeting of the Council and the Assembly ought to be held. First, there is the question of the passage of the annual budget. I see it suggested that the Fourth Committee of the last Assembly should be called for that purpose and. then circulate the budget by post to the different members. That does not seem to me a very proper way of dealing

with the subject. I hope the Government will strongly resist any attempt to cut down what remains of the structure to anything which would make that a mere skeleton. The influence of the British Government will be very considerable in these matters, and I hope that anything in the direction of maintaining as much of the structure as possible will be done. Then there is the election of a judge. In order to elect a judge to the Permanent Court of International Justice there has to be a meeting of the Council and the Assembly. How is it proposed to deal with that position? The world Court has been a great success and we want to keep that piece of international machinery functioning to its full purpose.
The Secretary-General of the League of Nations first of all suggested that the meeting should be held on 4th December and asked for the comments of different States members. I should be interested to know what replies were received and what States accepted the invitation. Some certainly did. Did the British Government accept the invitation? It is all very well to say that certain proposals have been put forward by neutral States, but it is obvious that if the British Government took no action we could hardly expect neutral States in their present position to come forward with any very assertive proposals.
I saw it suggested in the "Times" of 19th November that the 20th annual meeting of the Assembly had been postponed indefinitely as a consequence of the approval, by a majority of the members of the League, of a Dutch-Swedish proposal that instead of the Annual Assembly only the Fourth Committee should meet to examine the draft Budget for 1940. I should like to know whether the British Government gave a lead to the neutrals and other members, or merely left it for them to make such suggestions as they thought lit. That makes all the difference in the world. Whenever Great Britain gives a lead. the other countries are willing to follow. I hope the Government will do what they can to avoid giving the impression that they are ashamed of the League, that they want to evade its existence, and are shuffling out of what remaining responsibilities they have. That would create a most deplorable impression in this country and abroad. Whenever this war is over I think it is generally agreed that it will


be necessary for victors, vanquished and neutrals to set up some world machinery which will prevent anything of the kind happening again. Various proposals are put forward. Some people favour a United States of Europe, others talk of federalism, and others are enamoured of the proposals in the well-known book "Union Now." But whatever we have it must be something that works, and works more effectively than the League of Nations has. At the same time it is a fact that the only piece of international machinery of its kind existing in the world is the League. It is the basis on which we shall have to build something better in the future. There are vast numbers of people who were in the last 20 years captured by the idealism that lay behind it, and at the last General Election Members were returned on the basis of full support for that organisation. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is going to make a statement which will be to some extent reassuring, and that he will make it clear that whatever difficulties the Government may foresee they do intend, at the earliest possible moment, to see that the machinery of the League that remains is functioning, and that a meeting of the Assembly and the Council are held for the various purposes I have mentioned.

10.38 p.m.

Mr. Noel-Baker: A few months ago the Under-Secretary told the House that the Government were engaged in rebuilding the League of Nations on a new and more solid foundation. I think the proposal he is going to make to-night is a grim commentary on the claim which he then made. It is the end of a chapter in the history of human effort for order and peace, and an end which is symbolic of the loss of chances in the last eight years. The Under-Secretary is going to defend the proposal that, in effect, there shall be no Assembly. Although there is a war in progress, a war which is being fought for every principle on which the League was founded, yet we cannot use the tribunal of the Assembly to state the reasons why we have taken up arms or the conditions on which we shall lay them down. To me such a decision is a confession of moral defeat. It means the loss of what I think might have been a great opportunity. I understand that at another stage there was another proposal, that a meeting of the Assembly

should be held but on condition that no topic of political importance should be mentioned. I am bound to say that I think this decision is a great deal better than that. The idea of an Assembly which could not even mention the great war that was in progress while it was sitting would have made the authors of the Covenant turn in their graves. They would have been utterly revolted by the conception of a neutralised League, which seems to be so generally accepted at the present time.
But I have no reason to dwell on what has been decided. Rightly or wrongly the decision has been taken, and we have to make the best of it. I want to put a few questions about what the Assembly is going to do, and what I hope it is not going to do, and I hope that the Under-Secretary will be able to give us specific assurances on the various points. The Under-Secretary will not be surprised to hear me mention the word "Palestine." I hope he will be able to give me a pledge that His Majesty's Government will not try to force through this bastard Assembly the White Paper and that he will not try to secure its assent to the policy contained in the White Paper on Palestine, of last summer.
We remember the circumstances in which that Paper was prepared and the report upon it by the Mandates Commission of the League. It would be playing fast and loose with the sacred principle of the sanctity of international obligations for which we are fighting in this war to endeavour to do any such thing. It would cause a shock throughout the world, and not the least in the United States of America, and would still further damage our moral credit there. The hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) asked for a pledge that the Government would do all in their power to ensure that the Budget of the League would not be cut away to nothing. If the Government are serious in their declaration that they have made of our purpose in the war, they should strive, not for a diminution but for an actual extension of the work which the League are doing in economic and social questions. I do not need to remind the Under-Secretary of the importance of the report which was prepared last August by the Bruce Committee. That remarkable report consists of a discussion of the


inevitability of increased contact among nations in the modern world, and it explains, with irresistible logic that there must be a further development and extension of economic and social co-operation between Governments if the prosperity of the peoples of the world is to be promoted. It ends with a proposal for the creation of a central committee for economic and social questions, to consist primarily of Members of the League. By this committee the help and co-operation of non-Members would be sought.
It is plain that when this war comes to an end there will be urgent need for economic co-operation of the kind with which the Bruce Committee dealt. We shall certainly be face to face, when the fighting is over and the production of munitions comes to a sudden stop, with the most serious economic crisis that the modern world has ever known. That can be dealt with only by an international plan. Why cannot the Assembly now create a central committee such as the report proposes and charge that committee with doing everything in its power to deal with the crisis by which we know the war is bound to be followed. That work could be entrusted to the I.L.O., and the economic and financial sections of the League would of course be brought into it. If they were to set about preparing plans now, with the assistance which they could obtain from many countries, their work might be twice as valuable when the peace conference meets.
I do not think that proposal is at all impractical. Its cost would be trifling and it would be warmly welcomed by many other countries, including the United States. Not long ago it was quoted in this report of the Bruce Committee that the United States Secretary of State, Mr. Cordell Hull, wrote a letter to the Secretary-General, in which he said:
The League of Nations has been responsible for the development of mutual exchange and discussion of ideas and methods to a greater extent and in more fields of humanitarian and scientific endeavour than any other organisation in history.
I venture to think that the co-operation of the United States of America might be obtained in this work, and I hope His Majesty's Government will set it on foot.
With regard to the question of the Court of International Justice, which was referred to by the hon. Member for East

Wolverhampton, the question which arises is not that of the election of a single judge but of the election of a whole court. The Mandate is due to end this year. When I asked whether proposals were considered for dealing with this difficulty, the Under-Secretary answered, as I understood him, that no proposals had been made. Some solution is urgently required. It would be madness to allow the court to disappear—a court which, as the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton said, has been the most successful single organ of the League, and not only that but the organ which is bound to be the keystone of the whole system. An attempt to re-elect the whole court this year would not result in a very satisfactory selection. I believe the jurists ought to be able to find some means by which the present Mandate of the court could be extended for a year or two by general agreement. I hope the Under-Secretary will assure us with the thought that His Majesty's delegation will not allow the court to disappear.

10.47 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Butler): I am sure that no one on this side of the House could complain of the tone with which hon. Members have put forward their points this evening. I should like to acknowledge the words of tribute to the Government's attitude which were uttered by the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) when he said that on the whole our attitude had been sympathetic towards the League. I would go further than that and in the few remarks that I am going to make I hope it will become obvious that we have the future of the League at heart. We realise perhaps more than anyone else that we who are engaged as a country in this tremendous fight must not put the League from our thought's at this critical moment. The hon. Member for East Wolverhampton referred in the course of his speech to the letter sent by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to the League at the outbreak of the war. I will not trouble the House at this late hour by quoting from that, because the full text of the letter has, in answer to a question by him, been circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT; but it is right to say that that letter sent to the League at that time establishes the principles for which we are fighting and illustrates that they are the same as


those for which the League was founded and the League Covenant drafted. In our view, this is the most effective step we could have taken on the outbreak of the war in relation to our attitude to the League.
In considering the League, it may be thought that there is some unreality at this moment of crisis, but in fact we are rather face to face with reality because we have in front of us the reminder of the ideal of international co-operation to which in one form or another we must return if our civilisation is to be maintained. It is difficult to speculate on what exactly will be the nature of this international co-operation or what will be the nature of the League after this struggle is over. It is interesting to observe that the League is a growing plant. It has already multiplied itself in certain directions. In the grey autumn of 1938 there were certain modifications made, and it was upon those modifications that I based the claim to which the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Noel-Baker) referred a few minutes ago, because I believe at that period the positive work in re-building the League was undertaken— perhaps not the final work, but the positive work—and all the steps that we took then, I think, were leading in the right direction.
The House will remember that the Covenant was separated from the Peace Treaty. An attempt was made to modify the unanimity rule in respect of Article 11, and a report on the possibility of enlisting the collaboration of non-member States was circulated to those States on the initiative of His Majesty's Government. It was in answer to that initiative that a sympathetic reply was received from the Government of the United States. The hon. Member for Derby has quoted a passage from the Bruce Committee's report, which I was going to quote. For the sake of completeness in my remarks, I should like to quote it again. The United States Secretary of State said that the League had been responsible for the development of mutual exchange and discussion of ideas and methods to a greater extent and in more fields of humanitarian and scientific endeavour than any other organisation in history. These, then, were practical steps which were taken.
I was very glad to hear the hon. Member refer to the Bruce Committee's report. This Committee was set up as a result of the Resolution of the Council of May, 1939, to study the appropriate measures of reorganisation, to ensure the development and expansion of League machinery for dealing with what the Committee described as economic and social problems, and to promote the active participation of all nations in efforts to solve those problems. I have brought with me a copy of the report of the Committee, and I hope that some opportunity will arise for giving its recommendations the attention that they deserve. It is clear that up to date a full opportunity for studying the Committee's conclusions has not arisen. Proper consideration of them must, it is acknowledged, have been temporarily interrupted on the outbreak of war.
But I should at once like to take up the remarks of the hon. Member for Derby on this committee, and to say that His Majesty's Government welcome the suggestion he has made and will undertake to give it very serious consideration and will see that at the earliest opportunity proper and due consideration is given to the work of the committee. If I may say so, I think his suggestion that the committee should set to work to study at an early date the sort of economic problems that are bound to face the world at the end of the war is a constructive suggestion, worthy of our earnest consideration. In our view, this committee tendered valuable advice as to how to utilise to the best advantage the machinery of the League of improving social and economic conditions. I should like, on behalf of the Government, to pay a tribute to Mr. Bruce, the chairman, and the members.
The immediate question before us is that of how we are to deal with the immediate outstanding business of the League. Normally, the Assembly should have met on nth September. For obvious reasons, at the outbreak of the war we could not send a delegation, and we contemplated that the Assembly should meet at a more convenient time. Since then we have been in consultation with other Governments, and have found that there has been agreement with us, first, that that was not a convenient time to hold a meeting of the Assembly, or of the Council. The immediate need was to


approve the Budget, in order to carry on the machinery, and it appeared that the best method was to accept the suggestion of the Netherland and Swedish Governments that the Fourth Committee should meet to do so. The Budget has already been drawn up.
In parenthesis, I should just like to remind the House that the organisation of the League is functioning in a number of useful ways at the moment. I think it is always valuable to stress the actual work of the League which is being carried on. The Health Committee is at present meeting. This is the same committee which answered an early appeal from the Rumanian Government about Polish refugees who were in that country, and answered it and dealt with it to the best of its ability. Secondly, the League is continuing with its work and reporting on questions of health, foodstuffs, and international trade. Thirdly, the work of the Permanent Mandates Commission is continuing, and in this connection I would like to assure the hon. Member that there is no question of raising the matter of Palestine or the White Paper before the Mandates Commission on this occasion. The work of the Permanent Mandates Commission will be centred upon African reports and will have no relation to Palestine.

Mr. Dalton: It must come before the Council?

Mr. Butler: The hon. Gentleman is right. It must come before the Council. The Council is not meeting, and there is no question of Palestine being raised at this meeting.
Fourthly, there is the work of the International Labour Office. This is well-known and is proceeding. The regional conference of the International Labour Office is to be held at Havana, at which an observer is to attend on behalf of His Majesty's Government. The fourth committee will meet as a committee of the Nineteenth Assembly, as the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton observed. The decision that the committee shall meet, does not, in our view—and this is an important point about which I have been asked—prejudice the question of the eventual meetings of the Council and the Assembly to which His Majesty's Government still attach importance. The hon. Member was right in saying that there is

work to do in connection with the election of the Permanent Court of International Justice and also in the election of new-members of the Council itself. I have no definite information as to what arrangement has been made about the Permanent Court, but I understand that it is contemplated—and this I have on good authority—that the judges will continue in office and that a suggestion not unlike that made by the hon. Member will probably come into force.
His Majesty's Government are continuing their support of the League, and this support is most important at the present moment in its moral and political sense and also in its financial sense. I trust that other Governments will continue their support in the same manner.
The hon. Member suggested that we should not cut the budget. The budget depends upon subscriptions, and I trust, therefore, that if other Governments continue to give, as we trust they will, the same financial support as they have in the past, the need for cutting the budget will not be as urgent as it otherwise might be.
I can assure hon. Members on all sides of the House that it is not our wish to stultify the League or to hamper the work of the Secretariat, and especially the work of the Economic Section and of the Health Section. Hon. Members had suggested that at any rate—

It being Eleven of the Clock, the Motion for the Adjournment lapsed.

The Orders of the Day were read, and postponed.

Motion made and Question again proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. James Stuart.]

Mr. Butler: It only remains for me to sum up some of the points I have made and to deal with the only sign of depression which I noticed in the speech of the hon. Member for Derby. He said he thought that, in defending this proposal, I should be defending the end of the system, which would amount to moral defeat. I should like to counter any such suggestion. I suggest that I have shown that, in our attitude towards the modification of the League machinery and the


modification of the League's attitude to certain questions, we believe that there was growth inherent in its system. I suggest that what I have said about the future meeting of the Council and Assembly makes it clear that this is no final decision.

Mr. Mander: Will it be held before the end of the war?

Mr. Butler: I cannot give any date, but I trust it may be before the end of the war. It is our wish that the League should remain in being, and if it is to remain in being, its organs must meet and function in the proper manner. The difficulties that confronted the hon. Member were obvious to us. The dangers that he fears were that we should prejudice the League by the action we have taken, but I think that we should prejudice it by being over-eager at the present time if what the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton described as a large meeting of the League were held at which a political address might be made by an important statesman. We can well see the advantage of that, but our position as a belligerent and the position of France as a belligerent towards the enemy are very clear. They have been made clear on many occasions but we have to consider the difficulties at this time of certain neutral countries which are faithful members of the League, and in this connection the position of the Swiss Government is one which merits our attention

and consideration. Calling a meeting of the League and holding the kind of Debate which the hon. Member referred to would, we fear, tend to put in jeopardy the League structure, and we consider that the friends of the League would be wise to be patient at this time and turn their attention to the positive value of the social and economic work which the League can do and of which it might do more in the future.
I have counselled patience. Meanwhile, we are fortified in our championing of international law and our belief in the settlement of disputes by negotiation —the very ideas on which the League was founded. We can look as far as victory. Of that we are sure. But beyond victory we wish to see established better methods of regulating the affairs of nations. We can well learn from the experiences and the failures of the League system, and in particular perhaps it's lack of elasticity in dealing with the changes of a stirring world, but in the meantime do not let us, by over-eagerness, ruin and shatter one of the greatest organisations ever built up in the long history of human endeavour, from the beginning of which we may yet build a true method of securing international co-operation, if we support it in these difficult times to the best of our ability.

Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Five Minutes after Eleven o'Clock.